Report:TotalPatent/Viewing Results/Viewing Full Text/Introduction

Introduction

The TotalPatent user has a few different options when it comes to viewing full text documents. Users have the option to view one full document at a time, view one document at a time with a list of results on the left side of the window, or view the same document in two simultaneous views. The full text view always breaks the document up into four sections: bibliographic data, abstract, description, and claims. Each of these four sections is expandable and collapsible by clicking on the title of the section or the small arrow icon to the left of the section title. See the screenshot below:

A view of a full text patent record in TotalPatent.

When viewing a document, there are several options available, as shown below:^[1]

Full text viewing options.

Full: The default view mode. Shows full document text often including bibliographic data, abstract, description, and claims.

Claims: Shows only claims information for the patent document. Brief bibliographic data is shown at the top so the user knows what patent is being viewed.

Image: Shows only the clipped image for the patent and any drawing sheets submitted for the patent document. When multiple drawing sheets are available, a specific one can be selected via the drop-down list. Select from the gallery of thumbnail images ("Clipped Image" section and "Drawing Sheets" section) to view an original-size version of the image (see Viewing Patent Drawings).

Jump to a specific image via the drop-down menu, and select any thumbnail image to view a full-size version of the image.

KWIC: Keywords in Context shows search term hits along with a few lines of context from the document. In this case, TotalPatent shows 25 words before the hit term and 25 words after the term when a hit term is located in the Abstract, Description, or Claims section. If the search term is in a section other than Abstract, Description, or Claims, then KWIC will not display any information for that hit. Below is a screenshot showing the KWIC feature:

The KWIC display format shows highlighted hit terms along with 25 words of context on either side.

Family: When patent family information is available, this view displays family information associated with the patent document (see the Family Search Features section of this article).

Legal: When legal status information is available for a patent document, this view will display that information, along with some bibliographic information. See below for an example:

The legal status display format.

Courtlink: This view will bring up a list of cases involving the specific patent, when available (only provided for US patents). Select the Docket Number to bring up the case description in a new window. According to the help guide, "the data is provided by LexisNexis Courtlink and is available without a specific Courtlink subscription plan."^[1]

The Courtlink view displays a chart of cases involving the selected patent.

PDF: This option allows the user to view the original PDF (Portable Document Format) document as issued by the patent authority. Via a small drop-down menu beside the icon, select to view the PDF in the current frame, or choose to save/open the PDF with your own PDF viewer.

View the PDF in the current window, or save/open the PDF with your own PDF viewer.

Notes: View any notes attached to the individual patent. Users can also add notes to the current patent by choosing the "Add Notes" link beside the icon.

View all notes added to a patent under the "Notes" view.

New Window: This opens the current patent in a new window. It is useful for viewing more of the patent at one time, without the search terms and icons taking up valuable screen space. Note that this view only applies to the patent document from which it was launched, and it does not advance to a new patent if the new window is left open and a new patent is navigated to from the main result window. See below for a screenshot of the New Window feature:

The New Window feature opens up a new pane to view a patent record.

The Language drop-down menu is visible on the right side of the window when viewing the text of a document. When a document is available in other languages, the user can refresh the document into a new language by using this menu.

When viewing the Full Text of a document, hit terms will appear highlighted with colored background behind the text. For example, the first hit term will be colored yellow, the second red, the third blue, and so on (colors may not necessarily be applied in this order). The screenshot below shows TotalPatent’s colored hit term text highlighting:

The keyword highlighting feature.

Additionally, TotalPatent’s Full Text view features a variety of hyperlinked information such as:

Document Numbers: Cited document numbers are hyperlinked for quick viewing.

Inventor Names: Inventor names are hyperlinked, resulting in an Inventor Name search when clicked.

Applicant/Assignee Names: Applicant and Assignee names are hyperlinked, resulting in an Applicant/Assignee search when clicked.

Attorneys: Attorney names are hyperlinked, resulting in an Attorney search when clicked.

Classifications: Classification codes are hyperlinked, resulting in a classification code search when clicked. Users can also mouse over the linked classification codes to view a pop-up text box containing the code definition.^[2]

USPTO PAIR: For US documents, TotalPatent provides a link to the USPTO Electronic Business Center webpage.

Within the "Patent References Cited-Backward" and "Patent References Cited-Forward" tables on the full record view, both the publication numbers and titles of cited/citing references link to a search for the relavent document's publication number. The Applicant/Assignee is also hyper-linked for each cited/citing reference in the table.

It should be noted that when a record is opened in a new window, the hyper-linked inventor/assignee/attorney names, PAIR link, and hyper-linked classification codes are not available. The mouse-over text boxes containing the code definitions also aren't available for a record opened in a new window. Links are still available in the new record window, however, for publication numbers, titles, and applicant/assignee names listed in the cited/citing reference tables.

Editor's Note:

The lack of a user-defined highlighting feature is a significant shortcoming when comparing TotalPatent to its competitors. Many searchers find it useful to be able to highlight words other than the search terms when viewing the text of a document.

It is a great improvement to the workflow on TotalPatent that users can now view the definitions of classification codes simply by hovering their mouse over the code. Overall, TotalPatent does an excellent job of allowing viewers to easily navigate directly from one full-text result to the next, since the viewer can simply click the forward or backward arrow at the top of the page to navigate to the next result, while stilling viewing the same section of the next or previous document. For example, if the user is reading the claims section of a record in full-text view, they can navigate to the claims section of the next record simply by selecting the forward arrow. The additional options to view a list of documents beside the full text or to view the same document in two formats side-by-side gives the user flexible navigation choices, which is an additional advantage to the viewing capabilities on the TotalPatent system. One problem with the TotalPatent viewing options is the inability to simply type a result number and skip ahead to that particular result while in full-text view. Instead, the user must locate the document through the list view (which does give a drop-down menu of result number ranges, i.e. 1-10, 11-20, etc.) before switching over to the full-text view.