| PatentWatcher™ Help |
Field Searching in General
In the USPTO patents database, patents are divided into fields. Fields are segments of the patent documents such as the patent number, the title, the abstract, the claims, the inventor name, etc. Searching for a query term by field means that a patent will be treated as a "hit" only if the query term occurs in the specified field. It will not be a hit if the term only occurs somewhere else in the patent. Field restricted searching enhances your ability to focus your search and decreases the likelihood of hitting on extraneous patents
The following sections of this help file explain what is contained in each of the fields searchable using PatentWatcher™. Some of the fields have field-specific rules for formulating query terms. For example, dates must be expressed in certain formats supported by the database.
Some general rules of forming query expressions apply to most or all of the fields. The general rules include such matters as using alpha-numeric characters, phrase searching, nesting, and right truncation. See How to Form Query Expressions.
Abstract (ABST)
This field contains a brief summary of the patented invention.
TIP: The abstract contains many of the relevant words of a patent.
Application Date (APD)
This field contains the date when a complete application was received by the US Patent and Trademark Office, following receipt of all filing material requirements.
You can use one of three formats to search in any of the date fields:
1. <four digit year><two digit month><two digit day>
Example: use 19960103 to retrieve documents filed on January 3, 1996.
2. <Month>-<Day>-<Year>
Month can be the number of the month, the full name of the month, or an abbreviation (i.e. 1, January or Jan).
Day must be a number between 1 and 31 or the wildcard symbol, $.
Year must be a four digit year (e.g., 1996).
Example: use 1-3-1996, Jan-3-1996 or January-3-1996 to retrieve documents filed on January 3, 1996.
3. <Month>/<Day>/<Year>
Month can be the number of the month, the full name of the month, or an abbreviation (i.e. 1, January or Jan).
Day must be a number between 1 and 31 or the wildcard symbol, $.
Year must be a four digit year (e.g., 1996).
Example: Use 1/3/1996, Jan/3/1996 or January/3/1996 to retrieve documents filed on January 3, 1996.
You can search for a range of dates using the two-character -> operator.
Example: use 1/1/1995->2/14/1995 to search for patents with application dates between January 1, 1995, and February 14, 1995.
If you want to search for all documents with application dates in January of 1995, it is simpler to use 1/$/1995 than to use 1/1/1995->1/31/1995, though both will return the same results.
This field contains the name of the individual or entity to whom ownership of the patent was assigned at the time of patent issue.
If the assignee was a person, and you want to search for the full name, you should format your query as follows:
<last name>-<first name>-<initial>
Example: use Doe-John-E to search for patents assigned to John E. Doe.
If you are unsure of the exact name, you can truncate in the following ways:
Doe-$ or Doe-John$ or Doe-J$
If the assignee was a company, and you were not sure of the exact name, you could truncate on a portion of the name.
Claim(s) (ACLM)
This field contains the text of the patent claims. Claims point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the applicant regards as the invention and define the scope of the patent protection.
Claims from both utility and design patents are included.
Description/Specification (SPEC)
This field contains the patent description, including a brief summary and background of the invention, the detailed description, and a brief description of the drawing, if applicable.
International Classification (ICL)
This field contains the International classification(s) to which the patent has been assigned.
You must enter the classification with a zero ("0") in place of the space, i.e., without any embedded spaces. Formatting your search in this field in any other way will result in an error.
Example: use G06F019/00 to search for International Classification G06F 19/00.
Inventor Name (IN)
This field contains the inventor(s) of patented items.
As with all other name fields, if you want to search for the full name, you should format your query as follows:
<last name>-<first name>-<initial>
Example: use Doe-John-E to search for an inventor named John E. Doe.
If you are unsure of the exact name, you can truncate in the following ways:
Doe-$ or Doe-John$ or Doe-J$
Patent Number (PN)
This
field contains the unique number assigned to applications that have issued as
patents.
There are several things to remember about patent number searches:
To search for a particular type of patent, enter "D" for design patents, "PP" for plant patents, "R" for reissue patents, "T" for defensive publications, "H" for SIRs, "X" for the early X-patents, or "AI" for the early Additional Improvements without the numeric portion of the number.
Non-utility patents have prefixes. For example, design patent number 123,456 is actually D123,456. The prefixes are as described in the previous paragraph.
Including commas in patent numbers is optional.
Published Application Number or Document Number (DN)
Title (TTL)
This field contains the title of the patent.
Current US Classification (CCL)
This field contains the original and cross-reference classes in which the patent was classified at the time of the most recent PTO Master Classification File.
If you are searching for a specific class and subclass, you should phrase your query as:
class/subclass
Example: use 2/5
Some subclasses can contain decimal and alpha modifiers (for example, 427/2.31 or 427/3A).
If you are searching for the entire contents of a specific class without specifying a particular subclass, you should use right truncation, as in 427/$.