1. Module 3B: Part 2 How to find all relevant patents in esp@cenet
using patent classification and keyword searches

2. Agenda Patent classifications: A unique tool to find patents
Keyword searches:
Boolean operators and truncations
Citations
Background information:
An excellent 40-minute online training that illustrates how to do
patent searches (in fact: any document search) using several cases
is available at:
(illustrates the principles of good searching – not hands-on exercises)

3. Agenda Patent classifications: A unique tool to find patents
Keyword searches:
Boolean operators and truncations
Examples for patent terminology
Citations
Background information:
An excellent 40-minute online training that illustrates how to do
patent searches (in fact: any document search) using several cases
is available at:
(illustrates the principles of good searching – not hands-on exercises)

4. Classification systems
IPC - International Patent Classification
- approx symbols
ECLA - European Classification
- approx symbols
What is the International Patent Classification?
Hierarchical classification system where each published patent documents has at least one IPC symbol assigned to it. Since 1 January 2006 the new and reformed IPC8 (IPC2006) edition is in place with approx. 20,000 symbols in the 'core level' and 70,000 symbols in the 'advanced level'.
What is the European Patent Classification?
Hierarchical classification system based on the IPC. Extension with up to 140,000 symbols used by the EPO examiners (and others).

5. Advantages of using patent classifications to search for patents
more objective than keywords
combination of keywords and classification symbols
Search with classifications is a rather objective instrument to find relevant documents. Keywords are much more subjective because there are different ways to describe a concept.
An ideal search strategy might contain a combination of keywords and classification symbols, as will be demonstrated in the next slides.

6. The value of classifications: foreign patent documents
By looking at foreign patent documents it may be hard to find out something about their content.
The classification symbol does give a hint.

7. International Patent Classification (IPC) http://www. wipo
Overview and search engine for the IPC provided by the WIPO at
You can choose between the different versions and find descriptions for symbols (in English and French).

8. International Patent Classification (IPC)
After entering the symbol found on the document shown before, the corresponding description will be displayed.

9. IPC in
In the IPC information can be found in the Bibliographic data tab, here the already mentioned Chinese document.
The symbols have different fonts (italics, bold).

10. The (reformed) IPC8
The relatively stable core level with about entries will be revised every three years.
The dynamic advanced level with about subdivisions can be revised up to every three months.

11. The (reformed) IPC8 Core Level Advanced Level Invention information
 A61L2/02
A61L2/03
Additional (non-invention) information
A61L2/00
A61L2/025
The IPC8 symbols in the result list (and in the documents) will be displayed as follows:
Advanced IPC symbols: italic
Core IPC symbols: non-italic
Invention related symbols: bold
Additional (not invention related) symbols: non-bold
The symbols will be displayed in the following order in
- advanced level before core level
- invention information before additional information
- IPC8 symbols before symbols from earlier versions, whereat old symbols will be displayed in normal font and prefixed with the label (IPC1-7)

12. Additional possibilities to qualify input in the IPC field
ci:
for invention information in IPC core level
cn:
for additional (non-invention) information in IPC core level
ai:
for invention information in IPC advanced level
an:
for additional (non-invention) information in IPC advanced level c:
for IPC core level a:
for IPC advanced level
      
If no modifier is applied, the symbol will be searched against all IPC fields, i.e. both IPC Core, IPC Advanced and IPC1-7.
In order to refine your search in IPC8, each classification symbol can be prefixed with one of the following modifiers:
c: IPC core
a: IPC advanced
ci: IPC core, invention information
cn: IPC core, additional information
ai: IPC advanced, invention information
an: IPC advanced, additional information

13. European Patent Classification

14. Why ECLA: Example Nanotechnology
Only ECLA has Nanotechnology classes and twice as many symbols as IPC (140,000 compared to 70,000).
Y tags can be used to retrieve nanotechnology documents in the same way that searching with ECLA codes retrieves documents.
The section Y is used for tagging documents which are already classified or indexed elsewhere. The technological fields to which these tags refer to are defined by the notes following the title of the subclasses of this section.
The tagging codes of this section do not replace in any way the classification or indexing codes of the other sections.
Thus the nanotechnology patents (about 80,000 documents from about 20,000 patent families) are scattered over all ECLA sections.

15. Searching in esp@cenet
Question
What patents are there regarding air conditioning for busses that do not use CFC as refrigerant?
example which will demonstrate the usefulness / necessity of the classification search in

16. Searching in esp@cenet Advanced search example by keywords
In all search masks choosing the worldwide database is recommended contains EP-applications published during the last 24 months, contains WO-applications published during the last 24 months).
Query:
(bus* or coach*) air condition*
truncation: * for a string of characters of any length
bus* for e.g. bus and busses
coach* for coach, coaches, etc.
condition* for e.g. conditioned, conditioning, etc.
(bus* or coach*) air condition*

17. Searching in esp@cenet Advanced search example by keywords
Result list contains 1424 results. Only 500 will be displayed (limitation of very time consuming to look through them
-> refine search (with button. By using skip back function of browser information in search mask may be lost).

18. Searching in esp@cenet Classification search
two options in classification search: find description for a given symbol or find classifications with keywords, here:
(bus* or coach*) air condition*
Mention to check "show notes": you will get information on classes being renamed, updated, etc.

19. Searching in esp@cenet® Classification search
After entering the search terms (maximum of 4) all relevant sub-groups will be displayed, sorted by relevance (marked by the black squares, max. 5).
Clicking on a title/symbol the sub-categories will be displayed.
By checking the box on the right hand side the symbol(s) will be copied to search form (next slide).

20. Searching in esp@cenet Classification search
By clicking on "Copy" the symbol(s) will be copied into the Advanced Search mask

21. Searching in esp@cenet Advanced search by ECLA symbol
By clicking on search all documents classified under B60H1/00H2 will be displayed.

22. Searching in esp@cenet Advanced search by ECLA symbol
still too many -> refine search by combining the search strategies

23. Refine search Refine search with additional keywords, e.g.: Coils
CFC (Chloroflurocarbon)
Compressor
Expansion Valve
Refrigerant
Obviously more keywords are required (according to the question mentioned in slide 13)

24. Searching in esp@cenet Advanced search by ECLA symbol and keywords
refrigerant not
(CFC or chlorofluorocarbon)
After clicking "Refine search" the ECLA field can be combined with the title/abstract field.
refrigerant not (CFC or chlorofluorocarbon)
Use of brackets: nested query (explained later on).

25. Searching in esp@cenet Advanced search by ECLA symbol and keywords
This time the result list contains only 24 results.

26. Agenda Patent classifications: A unique tool to find patents
Keyword searches:
Boolean operators and truncations
Citations

27. Agenda Patent classifications: A unique tool to find patents
Keyword searches:
Boolean operators and truncations
Examples for patent terminology
Citations

28. Searching in esp@cenet Boolean operators
AND
finds patents that match all the terms in the query OR
finds patents that match at least one, if not all, of the terms in the query
NOT
excludes irrelevant patents from a search (must be entered AFTER a search term)
Maximum 3 operators can be used per input field, and a total of 20 within the search mask as a whole.

29. Searching in esp@cenet Boolean operators
Default operators:
"Publication number", "Publication date", "Application number " and "Priority number" fields : OR
"Title", "Title/Abstract", "Inventor", "Applicant", "ECLA" and "IPC" fields : AND
Default operator for combining search fields : AND

30. Searching in esp@cenet Nested queries
- To nest query terms within other query terms
- Use of parentheses ( )
- Reading order :
within parentheses first
outside parentheses next
necessary whenever there are two or three different operators in one search field

31. "John Smith" OR "Smith John"
Phrase search
"John Smith" OR "Smith John"
instead of
John AND SMITH
"J. Smith" OR "Smith J."
J AND Smith
A special form of a proximity operator is the use of so-called phrases, often indicated by double quotation marks "A B". This might be useful when searching for names in order to avoid a lot of 'noise' in the search results.
Searching i.e. for the expression John AND Smith in an inventor field would also retrieve records containing John Miller and Robert Smith.
In order to cover both Smith J. and Smith John both queries have to be combined (one after the other due to the 4 search term maximum)

32. Searching in esp@cenet Truncation
Truncation symbols (wildcards) are used to include
the plural form of a word
alternative spellings
Three different wildcards available :
- ? stands for zero or one character
- * stands for a string of characters of any length
- # stands for exactly one character

33. Searching in esp@cenet Truncation - limitations
- cannot be followed by an alphanumeric character (e.g. colo?r)
- used in the "title", "title or abstract", "Inventor" and "Applicants" field
- must be at least two alphanumeric characters preceding "?" or " #" and at least 3 alphanumeric characters preceding " *"

34. Searching in esp@cenet Truncation - Automatic truncation
also available for
all number fields (with country codes)
IPC
ECLA
Retrieval from documents having a particular country code is possible by entering the country code only
In the IPC field, you should not use wildcards as the data is auto-posted, meaning that each symbol is indexed at different levels. For example: B (section level), B65 (class level), B65D (subclass level), B65D81 (group level), B65D81/32 (full classification).

35. Truncation for different spelling
vulcanisation or vulcanization?
=> (vulcanisation OR vulcanization) => vulcani*
color or colour?
=> (color OR colour) => colo*

36. Searching in esp@cenet Truncation - Automatic truncation - Date
Limitation :
- not possible to search within date ranges
But :
- you may enter up to four dates separated by the "OR" operator

37. Searching in esp@cenet Truncation - Automatic truncation
Publication date:
- yyyymmdd (you will find patent documents published on this precise date
- yyyymm (you will find patent documents published in the month and year indicated)
- yyyy (you will find patent documents published in the year indicated)

38. Agenda Patent classifications: A unique tool to find patents
Keyword searches:
Boolean operators and truncations
Examples for patent terminology
Citations

39. Numeration
"...a plurality of balls..."

40. Oxymorons
"...the post to be secured and which by means of a clamp is detachably attached to it"

41. Misleading titles
"Electronic Apparatus"

42. "Cooling System for Electronic Apparatus"
Misleading titles
"Cooling System for Electronic Apparatus"
info found in abstract - in fact cooling system

43. Over-specialised titles

44. Over-elaborate titles
Writing Instrument?
It's a pen!

45. GENERALLY SPHERICAL OBJECT WITH FLOPPY FILAMENTS TO PROMOTE SURE CAPTURE...
...an amusement device

46. The Alternative Spelling
racquet
racket

47. hole= aperture, opening, orifice, perforation
Synonyms & Alternative Spelling
pipe= channel, conduit, duct, leader, line, penstock, trough, tube
hole= aperture, opening, orifice, perforation
container= holder, receptacle, vessel
racquet / racket

48. Agenda Patent classifications: A unique tool to find patents
Keyword searches:
Truncations and other useful tools
Citations

49. Citations
In the bibliographic data tab in under "Cited documents" all documents listed in the search report of the application displayed are listed

50. Citations Example of a European search report.
category of cited documents
x particularly relevant if taken alone
y particularly relevant if combined with other document of the same category
a technological background

51. Citing documents
In the same tab the link "View list of citing documents" can be found.
Here all documents mentioning the displayed document in their search report are listed.

52. Summary: Improve esp@cenet search results
European and international classification
Combination of search fields
Truncations: *, ?, #
Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT
Synonyms
Phrase search, e.g. "Name1 Name2"
(nested) parentheses e.g. (( diode OR excimer ) AND laser )
follow citations to/from relevant documents