Scope of Data Available in Docket Navigator*
Note: this refers only to the data in our Patent library. Scope of data information is currently unavailable for Copyright, Trademark, and Antitrust.
Docket Navigator's patent library covers Patent Cases. Patent Case means (i) a federal civil action in a U.S. district court or the Court of Federal Claims addressing the infringement, validity or enforceability of a U.S. patent flagged with Nature of Suit ("NOS") 830 in the PACER system as well as other cases that are known to meet the above criteria, (ii) investigations by the U.S. International Trade Commission ("ITC") pursuant to 19 U.S.C. §1337 and 19 C.F.R. Parts 201 and 210 involving allegations of infringement of a U.S. patent as reported in the ITC’s Electronic Document Information System ("EDIS"), and (iii) applications to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board ("PTAB") under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b)(4) (including IPR, CBM and PGR review), as reported in the PTAB’s Patent Review Processing System ("PTAB E2E") (this does not include proceedings conducted pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b)(1)-(3) such as appeals of adverse decisions of examiners, appeals of reexaminations, or derivation proceedings). Scope of data for each forum is detailed below.
US District Courts*
Docket Navigator includes all patents in U.S. district court Patent Cases from every electronically available complaint since 2000. It also includes every claim construction since 2002. Every amended complaint is searched for newly asserted patent numbers, and those patents are entered into the database as well. A subset of answers that meet certain criteria are also checked for new patents in the counterclaims and those patents are entered on a daily basis.
All significant rulings in the district court patent cases have been indexed back to January 2008.
| Patent numbers* | 2000 |
| Claim terms* | 2002 |
| Basic case information (case number, parties, etc.) | 2000 |
| Indexed Rulings and selected pleadings* | 2008 |
| Outcomes** | Cases that terminated after January 1, 2016 |
*If the complaint or other relevant document is electronically available.
**Currently the Case Outcomes reflected in results and charts in the database are the original, lower court outcomes. Post-appeal outcomes are not currently counted. For example, if a case is dismissed as a result of a 12(b)(6) ruling, which is then overturned by the Federal Circuit and ultimately results in a settlement, only the 12(b)(6) outcome will be counted/displayed in search results. This means that the outcomes displayed in search results and charts may not be the final Case Outcome.
International Trade Commission (ITC)*
For the ITC, EDIS is checked for newly filed documents and cases on a daily basis. That information is added to Docket Navigator the same way the district court documents are processed. The database contains a complete docket sheet for every ITC case that is electronically available on EDIS, as well as every patent number that is electronically available. The significant rulings are entered on a daily basis, from 2012 forward.
| Patent numbers | All that exists in EDIS |
| Claim terms | Daily basis from 2012 forward |
| Basic case information (case number, parties, etc.) | All that exist in EDIS |
| Indexed Rulings and selected pleadings* | Daily basis from 2012 forward |
| Outcomes (collected directly from EDIS) | Investigations that instituted after October 1, 2008 |
*If the complaint or other relevant document is electronically available.
Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)*
The USPTO’s PTAB E2E portal is checked for newly filed documents and cases on a daily basis. Currently included in the database is a docket sheet for every IPR, CBM and PGR that is electronically available through the PTAB E2E, as well every patent number that is electronically available. Rulings are indexed and searchable by type of document and legal issue where applicable.
| Patent numbers | All that exist in the PTAB portal |
| Basic case information (case number, parties, etc.) | All that exist in the PTAB portal |
| Indexed Rulings and selected pleadings* | All substantive decisions and pleadings |
| Outcomes (derived from classifications of Board decisions) | All terminated cases that exist in the PTAB portal |
*If the complaint or other relevant document is electronically available.
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC)*
The CAFC includes hand-curated data for CAFC patent cases from Q4 of 2017 and later. We are actively working to expand the scope to include earlier years and we have some of the work done, but it is not comprehensive. For all other cases, we have basic coverage of the cases so that our users can set up alerts on the cases, docket entries, and documents.
Patent Classification*
In 2013, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) began transitioning from the US Patent Classification (USPC) system to the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) system. Prior to that time, U.S. patents included only USPC codes. In 2013 and 2014, U.S. patents were assigned both USPC and CPC codes. In 2015, the PTO began issuing patents with only CPC codes and assigned CPC codes for older patents, except for design and plant patents which continue to issue with USPC codes
Both systems allow patents to be tagged with more than one classification when the patent overlaps several areas. The USPC system is somewhat arbitrarily arranged and not inherently hierarchical, however the National Bureau of Economic Research organized the approximately 600 USPC codes into six categories and 39 subcategories. The CPC system is inherently hierarchical with nine top-level divisions, 126 subcategories, and about 650 4-digit CPC codes. Both the USPC and the CPC divide these codes into multiple levels of subcodes.
Docket Navigator utilizes both the USPC and CPC codes and subcodes. The complete list of codes and their titles is available on the Abstract tab of the patent detail page under the headings: Main U.S. Patent Class, Other U.S. Patent Classes, U.S. Patent Class Search Field, and Cooperative Patent Classes. The complete list of subcodes are available under the headings: U.S. Patent Class subcodes and Cooperative Patent Classes subcodes.
A search by patent class in Docket Navigator returns patents, or other items associated with those patents, which are tagged with any of the specified USPC or CPC class codes. Selecting the criteria shows a hierarchical arrangement with both the USPC and CPC classes at the highest level. A search may include categories from either or both systems.