Report:PatBase/Search Syntax/Searchable Datafields
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Searchable Datafields
Below is a list of all available commands that can be entered through the command line interface. Several of these options are more versatile than can be performed through the simple search form, including the “super class’ command (sc=) which will allow classifications from different schedules to be searched in the same string, for example sc= A61K or 321/405. Exact assignee or inventor names can be searched with the commands pae= and ine=. These commands are an advantage over the simple search form, but not over other search providers: MicroPatent, for example, allows a function similar to the “super class” command in its web-based search form, and exact assignee and inventor names can be searched in most databases by using quotes around the name.
Editor's Note:Two operations which are very valuable for clearance/infringement searching are PDCC and CLCC. PDCC stands for publication date/country code, and is used to limit searches to only family records with family members from a certain authority published before or after a certain publication date: for example, PDUS>1999 would search for only those records with a US family member published in 2000 or later. CLCC stands for claims/country code, and will limit text searching to within the claims of a specific country’s text records: for example, “CLUS=cable car” would search the full text claims of US records to find any that contain the phrase “cable car” (a blank space in PatBase means the two terms will be searched adjacent to one another). Using these two commands together, it would be possible to perform a country-specific infringement type search on live claims only. (note that you can also create a custom format that will display all full text claims for each hit on the main page –as opposed to having to open the full text viewer- which may be helpful for infringement searches. For more information on custom displays, see Display Formats).
The PDCC and CLCC commands are useful, but they should not be regarded as a specific advantage over other databases, most of which allow the user to search only within selected full-text country collections as a matter of course. In fact, one unique problem in PatBase is that there is no way to limit a full text keyword search to just the full text records of a specific country; whenever a full text search is performed in PatBase, it is run through all full-text collections without exception. The best that can be done is to limit the search by the CC= command, which will ensure that all family records retrieved by the search must have at least one member from the designated country. For example, “FT=cable car and CC=NL” will retrieve families that 1) have the phrase “cable car” somewhere in their full text records from any country and 2) have an NL family member. This fact is both limiting (in that users cannot specify that they want to search only in full text records from specific authorities) but also represents the great versatility of PatBase for finding documents from obscure countries that can be known to be possibly related to a topic, because they have an English-language family member that contains subject matter of interest.
In February of 2008, PatBase introduced several new search qualifiers that allow users to search by the number of publications in a family (NP=), and the number of publication countries represented in a family (NC=). These two qualifiers may also be used with the “greater than” and “less than” operators, for example, NP>1 (in combination with additional search terms) will search for all hits with more than one family member. In addition, users may search using the number of forward and backward citations from a patent family as a search limiting term: NCTF ( with >=or <) searches by number of forward citations, and NCTB (with >= or<) searches by number of backward citations.
Editor's Note:The utility of limiting the search by number of citations is limited, but it can help users narrow the search to more heavily cited families. Of course, this parameter is heavily dependent upon the publication date of the reference, and also upon the number of members in the patent family, so users should keep this in mind.
In 2009, a new search command that can restrict a search to only publications from a specified country was added to PatBase's capabilities. The format for the new command is FTCC=, where CC is replaced by a specific country code during actual use. The example given in the release notes is FTUS=(jet and ski), which will restrict the full text search on the kewords (jet and ski) to US publications only.
Editor's Note:Due to the unique nature of PatBase family records, many searchers had complained about the impossibility to limit keyword searches to only the text of documents which have been issued in a certain country (see the Introduction to the Search Syntax section for more information about perceptions of search accuracy in PatBase). The addition of the FTCC= command addresses those concerns. Alongside this new command, Minesoft also released a version of PatBase Express containing only US art as a response to popular demand. It seems that some customers were overwhelmed by the amount of international data contained in the PatBase database, and were asking for something much simpler and more limited to work with.
Field Qualifiers in PatBase
(as presented by PatBase user guide materials)[1]
Qualifiers for Bibliographic Data
| Field | Field description | Synonym | Example | Notes |
| AP | Application number | AN | ap=US19980131185 | |
| APD | Application date | AD | apd>20010202 | |
| CC | Publication country | cc=GB | ||
| CCD | Patent country and date linked | PND | pnd=USB200103 | Format CC First character of the kind code followed by date |
| CT | Cited patent | CD CP | ct=DE19646559 | |
| CTF | Forward Citations | ctf 1 | Forward citations of a search result set | |
| CTB | Backward Citations | ctb 1 | Backward citations of a search result set | |
| DS | Designated States | ds=GB | ||
| EC | European Classification | EPC | ec=B01F5/04C13B | |
| EPD | Earliest Publication date | epd>199901 | ||
| EPR | Earliest Priority date | epr>199901 | ||
| FN | Family Number | fn=14007271 | ||
| IC | International Patent Classification | IPC | ic=G01S15/89 | |
| IN | Inventor | INV | in=STAPP BERNHARD | |
| INE | Exact Inventor | ine=JAMES WATT | ||
| JCI | JP class F-Index | jci=G06F9/00/320/A | ||
| JCT | JP class F-Term | jct=2H091/FA14/X | ||
| JCF | JP class Facet | jcf=GBV | ||
| KD | Kind code | kd=epb* | ||
| NC | Number of Countries in Family | ft=(wingless aircraft) and nc>5 | ||
| NP | Number of Publications in Family | ft=(wingless aircraft) and np>5 | ||
| NUS | Number of US Publications in Family | ft=(wingless aircraft) and nus>5 | ||
| NWO | Number of PCT Publications in Family | ft=(wingless aircraft) and nwo>5 | ||
| NEP | Number of EP Publications in Family | ft=(wingless aircraft) and nep>5 | ||
| NJP | Number of JP Publications in Family | ft=(wingless aircraft) and njp>5 | ||
| NCTF | Number of Forward Citations | ft=(wingless aircraft) and nctf>5 | ||
| NCTB | Number of Backward Citations | ft=(wingless aircraft) and nctb>5 | ||
| LPD | Latest Publication date | lpd<1980 | ||
| LPR | Latest Priority date | lpr<1981 | ||
| PA | Patent Assignee | pa=siemens | ||
| PAE | Exact Patent Assignee | pa=GENERAL ELECTRIC | ||
| AG | Patent Agent | ag=(NOTARO*) | ||
| PD | Publication date | pd>1999 | ||
| PDCC | Publication date for a specific country | PDEP>1999 | ||
| PN | Publication number | pn=US4500001 | ||
| PRC | Priority country | prc=DE | ||
| PRD | Priority number | pr=DE20000021103 | ||
| PRD | Priority date | prd=1993:1995 | ||
| SC | Search all classification-systems at once | SC=(G01S15/89 or 261/20) | ||
| UC | US Classification | UPC | uc=261/20 | |
| LC | Locarno Classification | uc=21/23 | ||
| GC | German Classification | uc=B21D11/00 A | ||
| UE | Update equivalent week | ue=0346 | week format: YYWW | |
| UP | Update new family week | up=0346 | week format: YYWW | |
| UE | Update equivalent week for a particular country | up=0346US | week format: YYWWCC | |
| UIC | Search families with the first IPC added in the specified update week | uic=0918 | week format: YYWWCC | |
| UPA | Search families with the first assignee added in the specified update week | upa=0918 | week format: YYWWCC | |
| UAB | Search families with the first English abstract added in the specified update week | uab=0918 | week format: YYWWCC |
TIP (from PatBase User Guide): To search all updates for a specific year enter in the command line: up=YY* or ue=YY* . e.g. ue=03*[1]
Qualifiers for Textual Data[1]
The following qualifiers can be used to search in only selected text portions of patent documents. For example, a search beginning with the qualifier CLUS= would be conducted only in United States (US) patent claims. (The last two letters in the qualifying term CLCC can be any two-letter country code for which PatBase contains claim text.)
| Field | Field description | Synonym | Example | Notes |
| AB | Abstract | AB=laser~ | ||
| CL | Claims | CL=apple and pie | ||
| CLCC | Claims for a specific country | CLUS=fish and pie | Claims for the US containing the words fish and pie | |
| DSC | Description | DSC=green tea | ||
| FT | Full-Text | FT=iron | ||
| TA | Title or Abstract | TA=crane% | ||
| TAC | Title, Abstract or Claims | TAC=laser w2 dis? | ||
| TI | Title | TI=(power and line) |
Commands that can be used to check for field presence
The following commands may be used when it is necessary for a search to return family records only when a given data field actually contains (or does not contain) any information. For example, a search with AB=YES will retrieve only those family records with an abstract present in the family record.
| Field | Field description |
| AB=YES | Will search for records containing an abstract |
| AB=NO | Will search for records not containing an abstract |
| IC=YES | Will search for records containing an Int. classification |
| IC=NO | Will search for records not containing an Int. classification |
| IC8=NO | Will search for records not containing an Int. classification 8 |
| EC=YES | Will search for records containing a European classification |
| EC=NO | Will search for records not containing a European classification |
| UC=YES | Will search for records containing a US classification |
| UC=NO | Will search for records not containing a US classification |
| LC=YES | Will search for records containing a LC classification |
| LC=NO | Will search for records not containing a LC classification |
| GC=YES | Will search for records containing a GC classification |
| GC=NO | Will search for records not containing a GC classification |
Sources
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 PatBase User Guide, https://www.patbase.com/help.asp?c=fields.asp. Accessed on December 11, 2009.
