Patentee Name Harmonisation - ecoom.be

" GMBH & CO. KG " 191 GMBH Replace with " & COMPANY "
" GMBH & CO.K.G. " 0 GMBH Replace with " & COMPANY "
" GMBH & CO.KG " 15 GMBH Replace with " & COMPANY "
" GMBH & CO KG " 18 GMBH Replace with " & COMPANY "
" GMBH + CO. KG " 13 GMBH Replace with " & COMPANY "
" GMBH & CO. " 612 GMBH Replace with " & COMPANY "
" GMBH & CO " 65 GMBH Replace with " & COMPANY "
" GMBH & CO.," 77 GMBH Replace with " & COMPANY "
" GMBH & CO," 8 GMBH Replace with " & COMPANY "
" GMBH + CO. " 28 GMBH Replace with " & COMPANY "
" GMBH + CO " 6 GMBH Replace with " & COMPANY "
" GMBH + CO.," 1 GMBH Replace with " & COMPANY "
" GMBH + CO," 1 GMBH Replace with " & COMPANY "
" GMBH," 173 GMBH Remove
" GMBH " 1,648 GMBH Remove
Implementation
The more complex the analysis (identification of legal forms, identification of spelling variations,
validation), the simpler the implementation.
All identified and validated spelling variations of legal form indications are transferred to search
and replace statements or rules as in Table 15 and Table 18. This results in 1,060 rules or
statements to remove legal form indications at the end of names, one rule or statement to
remove legal form indications at the beginning of names, and 17 rules or statements to remove
legal form indications anywhere in the name.
Every statement or rule contains the spelling variation to identify and the harmonized string to
substitute. In most cases, legal form indications are simply removed and not replaced with
anything; replacement is used if legal form indication is preceded or followed by general
company words that can be harmonized (e.g. harmonize “ + CO.” to “ & COMPANY”).
Every statement or rule also includes the harmonized legal form. This is used to update a new
field with the harmonized legal form. The legal form indications are not deleted completely but
instead removed from the name field and moved in a harmonized format to a different field.
All identified and validated occurrences of legal form indications are removed by executing a
program that reads the search and replace statements or rules, and executes an update query
on the data to replace the given keyword (spelling variation of legal form indication) with a
given string (mostly replaced with nothing to simply remove the legal form indication) while, at
the same time, updating a new field to contain the harmonized legal form of the organization.
The search and replace statements were executed in three groups: firstly, a group of 1,060
statements to remove legal forms at the end of a name (see Appendix 2); then a group of 1
statement to remove legal forms at the beginning of a name (remove 1216 occurrences of
“KABUSHIKI KAISHA” at the beginning of a name); and finally, a group of 17 statements to
remove legal forms anywhere in a name (see Table 18).
In a group, all search and replace statements are executed in a singular and not a cumulative
approach. This means that if a name is updated because of a search and replace statement, it
cannot be updated again in a subsequent search and replace statement. This is to prevent a
cascade of replacements within one name leading to unexpected results (with consequent
difficulties for checking and validating). The list of search and replace statements is constructed
bearing this important implementation consideration in mind (e.g. first replace " + CO. AG" with
“ & COMPANY” before removing “ AG”).
If a name contains a legal form indication at the beginning and the end of a name, or anywhere
in the name, only the legal form indication occurring at the end of the name is harmonized and
moved to a different field.
Not all search and replace functions are concerned with legal form indications removal. Some
words, commonly used in a company context, appearing as last words were also harmonized,
such as “CO” and “CORP” (see analysis for more details).
As the replacements and removals in the search and replace statements can lead to names
ending with irregular punctuation characters, all occurrences of “-”; “;“; “:”; “,” and “&” are
removed at the end of a name by executing an update query on the data.
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