Strange behavior when locations endpoint is asked for fields across several groups

[crew102]

I noticed that the locations endpoint has some strange behavior when you ask it for fields from multiple "groups" (i.e., the groups in the fields list https://www.patentsview.org/api/location.html#field_list). The example below provides a minimal example where I try to get four fields that exist across four groups. I can get them one by one (iterating over the four fields), but when I ask for them all at once I don't get any results.

# Note, you need to install the development version of patentsview for this
# example to work. Install instructions are at https://github.com/ropensci/patentsview#installation.
library(patentsview)

# Four fields across four different groups
fields <- c(
  "app_country", "appcit_app_number", "assignee_first_name", "cpc_category"
)

# I get data back when I just request one field at a time
lapply(
  fields, function(x) {
    out <- search_pv(
      query = "{\"patent_number\":\"5116621\"}",
      endpoint = "locations", fields = x
    )
    out$data$locations
  }
)
#> [[1]]
#>    applications
#> 1 US, 07/633146
#> 2 US, 07/633146
#> 3 US, 07/633146
#> 4 US, 07/633146
#> 
#> [[2]]
#>   application_citations
#> 1                    NA
#> 2                    NA
#> 3                    NA
#> 4                    NA
#> 
#> [[3]]
#>                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             assignees
#> 1                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              NA, NA, 355732, 266721
#> 2                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          NA, 418770
#> 3                                                                                                             NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, Mitsuharu, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, Michihiro, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, 382287, 400473, 424537, 424521, 223745, 31540, 228806, 449617, 89956, 154906, 312721, 224607, 362422, 26496, 319914, 388631, 151555, 91808, 435483, 336374, 393982, 395807, 14773, 268676
#> 4 Nobuo, NA, NA, NA, Katsuya, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, 438500, 208580, 107932, 254267, 455621, 75677, 230390, 28244, 259040, 134943, 359304, 425372, 251726, 72364, 50779, 320071, 300279, 66679, 329152, 164075, 126024, 33651, 177375, 386925, 405566, 25355, 94566, 158880, 45188, 88534, 200166, 47321, 239233, 103790
#> 
#> [[4]]
#>          cpcs
#> 1 inventional
#> 2 inventional
#> 3 inventional
#> 4 inventional

# ...But not when I ask for them all at once
search_pv(
  query = "{\"patent_number\":\"5116621\"}",
  endpoint = "locations", fields = fields
)
#> $data
#> #### A list with a single data frame on a location level:
#> 
#> List of 1
#>  $ locations:List of 4
#>   ..$ : list()
#>   ..$ : list()
#>   ..$ : list()
#>   ..$ : list()
#> 
#> $query_results
#> #### Distinct entity counts across all downloadable pages of output:
#> 
#> total_location_count = 4

^{Created on 2019-11-25 by the reprex package (v0.3.0)}

[DiPietroch]

Hi crew102,

Thank you for bringing this issue to us. The problem you are having seems to stem from the PatentsView package in r rather than the API itself.

To run this query using the API you can use the following query language:

https://www.patentsview.org/api/locations/query?q={"patent_number":"5116621"}&f=["app_country","appcit_app_number","assignee_first_name","cpc_category"]

This will display the results you were looking for without needing to run each field individually.

Please let us know if you have any future issues with the API.

[crew102]

So it looks like it has something to do with the matched_subentities_only parameter.

When I set matched_subentities_only to false, I get results:

https://www.patentsview.org/api/locations/query?q={"patent_number":"5116621"}&f=["app_country","appcit_app_number","assignee_first_name","cpc_category"]&o={"include_subentity_total_counts":false,"matched_subentities_only":false,"page":1,"per_page":25}&s=

However, when I set matched_subentities_only to true, I don't:

https://www.patentsview.org/api/locations/query?q={"patent_number":"5116621"}&f=["app_country","appcit_app_number","assignee_first_name","cpc_category"]&o={"include_subentity_total_counts":false,"matched_subentities_only":true,"page":1,"per_page":25}&s=

I'm not 100% clear on what this parameter does, but I know that the results of the query shown above used to return results (while it's not returning results now). Am I missing something, or has something changed with the API? Thanks.

[DiPietroch]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. It looks as though there is an issue with the matched_subentities_only parameter at the moment. We are working to fix this and will update you and close this issue once it has been resolved.