Terms
A query is broken up into terms and operators. There are two types of terms: Single Terms and Phrases.
A Single Term is a single word such as "car" or "engine".
A Phrase is a group of words surrounded by double quotes suchas "electric car".
Multiple terms can be combined together with Boolean operators to form a more complex query (see below).
Note:If the english language option has been chosen then the analyzer on the terms and phrases in the query string will be the English Stemmer. For example the term "electrical" will be stemmed to "electric", "electricity" and so on.
So it is important to choose a language option from the start interface.
Stemming
English:Standard Lucene implementation of the Porter Stemming Algorithm, a normalization process that removes common endings from words.
Example:"riding", "rides", "horses" ==> "ride", "ride", "hors".
Other languages:Stemming Algorithms are also used for french, german, spanish and russian. For more info please see the Snowball reference
Fields
You can search any field by typing the field name followed by a colon ":" or "/" and then the term you are looking for. Examples:
Since EN_ALL is the default field, the field indicator is not required.
Note: The field is only valid for the term that it directly precedes, so the query
EN_TI:("wind turbine" AND electric) solar
Will only find "wind turbine" AND electric in the title field. It will find "solar" in the default field (in this case the EN_ALL field).
Note:The seperator between the name of the field and its value can be either ":" or "/".
Wildcard Searches
It supports single and multiple character wildcard searches within single terms. To perform a single character wildcard search use the "?" symbol. To perform a multiple character wildcard search use the "*" symbol.
The single character wildcard search looks for terms that match that with the single character replaced. For example, to search for "text" or "test" you can use the search:
Multiple character wildcard searches looks for 0 or more characters. For example, to search for electric, electrical or electricity, you can use the search:
You can also use the wildcard searches in the middle of a term.
Note:All the wildcard queries are executed against non-stemmed fields: EN_TI_S:mot* is converted to EN_TI:mot*
Note:PhraseQuery keeps the stemming option if no wildcards are found: EN_TI:"electric motor" is stemmed while EN_TI_S:"electric mot*" is converted to EN_TI:"electric mot*"
Note:use ALLNUM fields if you do queries using IDs like PCT/US/2009/0*, otherwise using the default field EN_ALL then query should be formulated like: (PCT US/2009/0*)
Note:You cannot use a * or ? symbol as the first character of a search.
Note:There is an overall limit of 50 wildcards allowed per query and a limit on the number of wilcards used in each field. The exact limit depends on the field and whether a single word or a sentence is used.
Proximity Searches
It supports finding words are a within a specific distance away. To do a proximity search use the tilde, "~", symbol at the end of a Phrase. For example to search for a "electric" and "car" within 10 words of each other in a document use the search:
Note:You can also use the syntax:
which is actually translated to "electric car"~5
Simple Date Searches
Simple date searches based on a year, month or day are allowed. For example:
Range and Dates Searches
Range Queries allow one to match documents whose field values are between the lower and upper bound specified by the Range Query. Range Queries can be inclusive or exclusive of the upper and lower bounds. Inclusive range queries are denoted by square brackets '[]'. Exclusive range queries are denoted by curly brackets '{}'. Sorting is done lexicographically.
For example, to find documents whose publication date fields have values between 01.01.2000 and 01.01.2001, inclusive, you may use:
Note:Range Queries are not reserved for date fields. You could also use range queries with non-date fields:
Empty Field Searches
To perform a search for empty/non empty fields you need to use Field_Name:[* TO *] For example, to search for all the documents where the russian title is not empty, you can use the search:
Dynamic Date Searches
You may use the special keyword TODAY to refer to the day the query is run. You may also append an offset of DAY(s),WEEK(s),MONTH(s) or YEAR(s). For example:
Fuzzy Searches
Fuzzy searches are based on the Levenshtein Distance, or Edit Distance algorithm, and finds words the spelling of which are close to the original term. To do a fuzzy search use the tilde, "~", symbol at the end of a single word. For example to search for a term similar in spelling to "roam", such as "foam" or "roams", use the fuzzy search:
A parameter can specify the required similarity. The value is between 0 and 1; the closer the value is to 1, the higher the similarity. For example:
Boolean Operators
Boolean operators allow terms to be combined through logic operators.
The following are supported: AND, "+", OR, NOT, ANDNOT and "-" as Boolean operators.
The AND operator is the default conjunction operator. This means that if there is no Boolean operator between two terms, the AND operator is used.
To search for documents that contain both "electric car" and "solar" use the query:
Grouping
Use parentheses to group clauses to form sub queries. This can be very useful if you want to control the boolean logic for a query.
To search for either "solar" or "wind" and "turbine" use the query:
Field Grouping
Use parentheses to group multiple clauses to a single field.
To search for a english title that contains both the word "battery" and the phrase "electric car" use the query:
ID,AN,WO,PN,ALLNUM search syntax
WO:YYYYNNNNNN, YYYY/NNNNNN, YY/NNNNNN, YYNNNNNN, YYYY/..NNNN, YY/..NNNN,YYYY..NNNN, YY..NNNN, YYYY, NNNNNN, ..NNNN (...NNN means all the leading 0 have been taken off)
You can add WO/ in front of any of this and (*) wildcard like:
AN:CCYYYYNNNNNN, CC/YYYY/NNNNNN, CC/YY/NNNNNN, CCYYNNNNNN, CC/YYYY/..NNNN, CC/YY/..NNNN,CCYYYY..NNNN, CCYY..NNNN, YYYY, NNNNNN, ..NNNN (...NNN means all the leading 0 have been taken off)
You can add PCT/ in front of any of this
National Publication Number (PN:)
Korea: PN format is :102001NNNNNNN 100NNNNNN. You can search for NNNNNNN, NNNNNNN, ..NNNNNNN, KR/NNNNNNN, KR/..NNNNN
South Africa: PN format is :YYYY/NNNNN. You can search for YYYY/NNNNN,YYYYNNNNN, ZA/YYYY/NNNNN, ZA/YYYYNNNNN, YYYY, NNNNN
Vietnam: PN format is :NNNN or NNNNN. You can search for NNNNN, VN/NNNN, VN/..NN, ..NN
Cuba: PN format is : NNNNN. You can search for NNNNN, CU/NNNN, CU/..NN,..NN
ARIPO: PN format is : AP/P/YYYY/NNNNNN or 'AP N{1,4}'. You can search for NNNNNN, ..NN, AP/YYYY/NNNNNN, AP/..NN, YYYY, YYYY/..NN
Singapore: PN format is : NNNNN or NNNNNN. You can search for NNNNN, SG/NNNNN
Israel: PN format is : NNNNN or NNNNNN. You can search for NNNNN, IL/NNNNN
Mexico: PN format is : CC/a/YYYY/NNNNNN. You can search for NNNNNN, ..NN, MX/YYYY/NNNNNN, MX/..NN, YYYY, YYYY/..NN
External Ressources
PATENTSCOPE search relevance algorithm
| Search relevancy now uses Okapi BM25; this improves how the 'best results' are showing at the top of the result list, basically, the main difference being that high term frequency doesn't have an impact on the final score. |
| Read more.. |