Report:PatAnalyst/Search Interface/The Search Forms
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The Search Forms
PatAnalyst offers two ways to search: the “Command-Based Search” and the “Form-Based Search”. The form based search is a structured search field entry form similar to search layouts offered by many patent search systems such as Patent Lens, FreePatentsOnline, and PatBase among others. For more information on the command based search, see the Command Line Interface section.
Form Based Search
The form based search in PatAnalyst features the ability to search every field in any of the patent documents available in the system. These fields can be added or subtracted to the customizable layout via a menu. Additionally, the user selected fields can be ordered for the user’s convenience.
To the right of each field, a small button (labeled “…”) incorporates indexing functionality to the form based search interface. Users can enter a term into a field, and upon clicking the indexing button, a popup information box displays the frequency of hits for the term as well as the other nearby terms in the field. For example, typing “toast” into the abstract field and clicking on the index button will bring up a statistical list of occurrences of toast and nearby terms such as toaster or toasting. The frequency given is the number of records in the database that contain the term within the field chosen.
Individual fields can be combined with Boolean logic operators. Once the search is executed, PatAnalyst will display the number of hits prior to giving the user options for what to do next. While this search process is ongoing PatAnalyst shows that it is running via an activity bar at the bottom of the screen. Once the number of hits is displayed, the user can choose to create another query, or display the first number of hits in the results pane located on the bottom of the default search layout. For more information on viewing records, please see the Hit List, Viewing Individual Records, and Viewing Full Text sections.
The right hand side of the interface features pop out menus for viewing the search history and IPC classifications. For further information on these features please see the Managing Search Histories and the Searchable Datafields sections.
It should be noted that the layout of the form-based search screen (along with any other PatAnalyst interface) is fullly customizable with respect to function, location of the tools, and size of the windows. For more information on customizability and preferences, please see the Preferences section.
Editor's Note:The customizability of the search form is a real asset for PatAnalyst. The number of fields can be as limited or expansive as the user desires, with the added ability to order the fields so that the most used fields populate the top of the screen. Additionally, users can organize the layout of the interface to combine elements of the search form into other parts of PatAnalyst. This should provide any user with a comfortable layout.
The indexing feature is handy and useful to find nearby relevant terms. PatAnalyst has a large number of available fields and a user-friendly customizable interface that works well and stands among the best form based search interfaces in patent search systems.
