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The Patent Formulas database is another exciting addition to the original AcuBase program. We have included over 500 patent formulas and their associated formula and vendor information from the top vendors in the field.

The Patent Formulas database is unique in several ways. First, all data from the Patent Formulas database was submitted for inclusion in AcuBase Standard 2.003 by the creators and/or chief distributors of the formulas. At the time of this writing, those vendors include: K'an Herbs, Health Concerns, East West Herbs, Lotus Herbs, Golden Flower Chinese Herbs, Mayway (Plum Flower and Min Shan), Chinese Modular Solutions, Spring Wind Herbs, Tashi Enterprises (Min Tong), and the Institute for Traditional Chinese Medicine and Preventive Health.

Because the formulas in the Patent Formulas database were developed by their associated vendors, and because their related written materials are copyright protected, AcuBase Standard 2.003 does not offer any patent formula-related reports. You may, however, modify as much information as you would like to in the Patent Formulas database

Finally, unlike standard herbs and formulas, each of which may have several vendors, each of the patent formulas has only one vendor associated with it. This vendor's name may be seen in both Form View and List View. From Form View's General Information tab, the left side of the screen shows the vendor name and logo(s), and, just below the logo(s), the amount of the patent formula in stock in the Inventory database.

Like all of the other parts of AcuBase, the patents database opens to show you all of the patent formulas in the database. These may be sorted by formula name or vendor. To see more details about a given formula, one may easily switch to Form View by simply pressing a button located next to the name of the formula, or by clicking on the "View As Form" button at the top of the screen. The main portion of the "Form View" screen appears below

To get more information on a given vendor, simply click on that vendor's logo or on the "Go To Vendor" button (at the top of each screen). To add or modify a given patent formula in the Inventory database, you may also click on the "Add To Inventory" button on the top of the General Information tab screen. And, of course, you may perform a "find" from any part of the database, so if you want to find all patent formulas in the database for a given condition, it's just a click away!

Graphic illustrations of the following features (this page will take a while to load...)

• Like the Standard Formulas database, the Herbs & Rationale tab will show you all of the herbs in each formula. To add or change an herb, simply click on the Herb Name field to see an alphabetical pop-up list of available herbs. When you click on an herb, its Latin name and Chinese characters appear automatically. And, by clicking on the box next to any given herb, you will be taken directly to that herb in the Herbs database. Dosage is given if it was supplied to us from the patent formula's vendor.
   
• The third tab, "Cautions, Dosage, Notes," shows fields full of just that: Cautions, Dosage, and other Notes related to each patent formula. Again, this information will be limited to what was supplied to us by the patent formula's vendor.
  

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  As stated above, if you were to click on the logo associated with the vendor of a given patent formula (or the "Go To Vendor" button), you would get further information on that vendor. Using Lotus Herbs as an example, you would first see the following screen, showing general contact information related to Lotus...
   
• The Vendor Literature tab is where you would find much more detailed information about that vendor, provided to us by the vendors themselves. In the case of Lotus, they sent us their "Clinical Manual of Oriental Medicine," with hundreds of pages of information. We organized that information into a Table of Contents. Each item under "Contents" may be clicked upon to reveal its associated text. In the example below, the user clicked on "Herbal Extract Vs.Bulk Herb." You may scroll down under Contents to see further information, as well.
   
• The Vendor Products & Inventory section of the Vendor Information database shows all patent formulas, standard formulas, and herbs in AcuBase which are supplied by this vendor. Next to each item is a button which may be clicked up to go directly to that item. If you were to click on the "Inventory" tab for Lotus Herbs below, you would see a list of all products that you have in inventory from that vendor. Again, you have buttons next to each item which, when clicked, will take you directly to that item in the Inventory database.
   
• In addition to the top vendors which come with AcuBase Standard 2.003, you may edit the vendor information, delete it, or even add as many of your own vendors as you like.
• For the purposes of this demo, we entered the Vendors database by clicking on the vendor logo in the Patent Formulas database, but you could also go directly to the Vendor Information database from the AcuBase Standard Main Menu. In that case, just like any other database in AcuBase, you will be presented with a list of all of the vendors in the database.
   
• Simply click on the vendor you are interested in to get more information on that vendor.