| PatentWatcher™ Help |
Some general rules of forming query expressions apply to most or all of the fields in the USPTO patents database. The following sections of this help file explain these general rules, including:
Some of the fields have additional, field-specific rules. For example, in the Issue Date and Application Date fields, dates must be expressed in certain formats. Effective searching also depends on knowing what is contained in each of the fields. For an explanation of the field-specific rules for forming query expressions and what is contained in each of the fields searchable using PatentWatcher™, see Field Searching.
The USPTO patents database supports searches only on alpha-numeric characters, that is, letters and numerals. Punctuation and other symbols (e.g., periods, commas, hyphens, slashes, colons, semi-colons, ampersands, asterisks, etc.) are not searchable and generally should not be used in forming search terms. Certain characters or symbols have reserved, specially defined meanings. For example, right truncation uses the dollar sign, $, as a wildcard symbol, and date ranges are constructed using the two-character -> operator.
Searches of the USPTO patents database are not case-sensitive. Searching for Needle and searching for needle will produce the same results.
A group of words enclosed in quotation marks will be treated as a single search term.
Examples: "bowling balls", "General Motors"
This allows you to search for a multi-word phrase. Searching for a phrase ensures that the words that compose it occur adjacent to each other and in the order specified, or else a document is not treated as a hit. By contrast, specifying the words as separate terms will hit on a document where both words occur even if they do not appear adjacent to each other or even if they occur adjacent to each other but in a different order.
CAVEAT: The USPTO patents database remains incapable of finding phrases when the words that compose it span a line break in the patent source text. For example, searching for "baseball bat" may not return all patents where that phrase occurs if it so happens that the word baseball is at the end of a line and bat it as the beginning of the next line.
Truncation within a phrase is not supported.
Right truncation allows you to use a wildcard on the right side of a search term. The wildcard tells the database to retrieve patents that have words that begin with a certain string followed by any ending. This is useful to hit on various word endings and variations of spelling.
Examples: elec$ hits on electric, electron, electronics, electrons, electricity, and so on
The base string must be at least 3 characters long. Truncation within a phrase that is enclosed in quotation marks is not supported. For example , "general mot$" will result in an error.
Be aware that truncation can hit on a large number of patents. It is advisable to consider just where to end the base string and position the wildcard. For example, if you are only interested in patents dealing with electronics, you could use electron$ to eliminate electric, electrical, electricity, etc.
Boolean Operators (and, or, andnot)
You can search for more than one term, connecting the terms with the Boolean operators AND, OR, and ANDNOT.
cat AND dog cat OR dog
+------------------+ +------------------+
| cat | |/ cat ////////////|
| | |//////////////////|
| | |//////////////////|
| +---------|---------+ |////////+---------|---------+
| |/////////| | |////////|/////////|/////////|
| |/////////| | |////////|/////////|/////////|
| |/////////| | |////////|/////////|/////////|
+------------------+ | +------------------+/////////|
| | |///////////////////|
| | |///////////////////|
| dog | |///////////// dog |
+-------------------+ +-------------------+
cat ANDNOT dog
+------------------+
| cat ///////////|
|//////////////////|
|//////////////////|
|////////+---------|---------+
|////////| | |
|////////| | |
|////////| | |
+------------------+ |
| |
| |
| dog |
+-------------------+
Nesting - Express Order of Operation
When you use more than one Boolean operator, sometimes it is not clear what the whole expression means. Boolean operators are based on Boolean algebra, so a simple example from algebra may illustrate the problem. Consider the following algebraic expression:
5 x 6 + 2
Does that expression evaluate to 32 or 40? The answer depends upon whether we multiply first or add first. In the following two expressions, the ambiguity is eliminated by express (as opposed to implied) order of operation.
(5 x 6) + 2
5 x (6 + 2)
In an implied order of operation, you are supposed to "just know" that multiplication precedes addition or vice versa. In an express order of operation, the order is expressed by nesting the operation that should be performed first in parentheses. The parentheses express rather than leave to implication whether to multiply first or add first. In text retrieval systems that use Boolean operators, the same sort of ambiguity can exist and it can be solved in the same way. Consider the following query:
tennis and racquet or racket
Left to implication, you might not know whether the query evaluates to
(tennis and racquet) or racket
or
tennis and (racquet or racket)
Adding the nesting characters -- the parentheses -- makes it clear both to you and to the text retrieval system what you mean.
Additional examples:
television or (cathode and tube)
needle andnot ((record and player) or sewing)
Text retrieval systems make indexes of the words that occur in the documents stored in the database. When a search is performed, the retrieval system searches the index, not the documents themselves. To be searchable, a word must be in the index, not just in the documents. Most text retrieval systems omit certain words from their index. The USPTO patents database omits the following "stop words" from its indexes for the Abstract, Claims, Description/Specification, and Title fields. Hence they are not searchable in those fields.
a embodiment onto therefore accordance fig or thereof according figs other thereto all for particularly these also from preferably they an further preferred this and generally present those another had provide thus are has provided to as have provides use at having relatively various be herein respectively was because however said were been if should what being in since when by into some where claim invention such whereby comprises is suitable wherein corresponding it than which could its that while described means the who desired not their will do now then with does of there would each on thereby
There is a maximum length limitation to searches. This length is the length of the fully-expanded search after query parsing by the USPTO patents database query processor. This fully-expanded query is not simply the command mode search statement. It is the hyperlink to hit patents in the HTML code of the hit list page as served by the USPTO server. This hyperlink is not directly viewable in PatentWatcher™. It can be viewed by loading the raw hit list pages that PatentWatcher™ saves to your hard drive into a browser by using your browser's Right-click-Properties capability. Queries which fully expand to lengths of more than 256 characters are not supported, may not work at all, and may not return valid results even if they do appear to have worked.