After
graduating from Sheffield University with a BSc Hons in Chemistry,
Norton took a job as a synthetic organic chemist at a pharmaceutical
company. He soon gravitated to the technical information
research department and found himself searching a new punch-card system
for patent information.
In 1963 Norton joined Derwent Publications, where he immediately became
involved with the design of retrieval systems, starting with a chemical
fragmentation system that facilitated the retrieval of Markush formulae. Thus
the early Derwent fragmentation code system was born and was later
adapted by Norton for polymers with the introduction of the Plasdoc
coding system. Norton also went on to develop the Derwent
Manual Codes for classification of different technologies.
With the advent of online searching in 1976 when the Derwent files were
loaded onto SDC-Orbit, the limitations of the 80 column punched card
format were removed, liberating Norton to modify and expand the
fragmentation code during 1978-1981 to develop the 'New Chemical Code'.
Over 2700 codes were introduced and are still much relied upon today
[2009].
In 1983 Norton started to investigate exciting possibilities for full
topological input of Markush structures and the subsequent searching of
these. In partnership with the Telesystemes organization, Norton was
instrumental in the development of the Markush DARC search system
together with INPI, the French Patent Office. The system was
implemented in 1986, and the full graphics search system became
available as WPIM in 1989.
In addition to creating the indexing systems, Norton also developed
user manuals and training materials and travelled extensively
throughout Europe, the US, and Japan, in training users, presenting
papers, and becoming a mentor to an entire generation of patent
searchers.
The above is taken from The International Patent Information Award 2009
citation (www.IPI-Award.com). Peter Norton died in July 2011.