PatBasics: An Introduction to PatBase

PatBasics - Search

Searching with PatBase





  • All search forms can be found under the “Search” tab on the floating toolbar.
  • PatBase’s Search Form is full-featured and simple to use. It can be used at any time during a search session and provides a structure to searches if you are unfamiliar with command language and/or field qualifiers.
  • Query Builder has much of the same functionality as the Search Form but the Boolean operators used to combine fields can be changed and there are more fields available to search.
  • The Upload Script option has a free-form textbox for entering multiple lines of search statements, each search statement should be entered on a new line. The query will run in order from top to bottom.
  • The Search History page displays all the searches you have run within a session. There is an option to clear, save, edit, and view your search history, found under the “History” tab.
  • The Upload Numbers option works for publication, application and family numbers. Enter lists of numbers in the text box, each number separated by a line break, or change the delimiter to a comma or semi-colon using the drop-down menu below.

Frequently Asked Questions

What fields does the Superclass (sc=) command cover?
The SC command will search the CPC, IPC, USPC, Locarno and the JP classifications systems for the query input after the “=” to find any relevant hits.

As long as the search query is contained within at least one of the mentioned classification systems PatBase will return a hit for any families matching the query.

E.g. an SC=(B60G17) search will find families with the JP F-index code of B60G17 which contain no other documents from other jurisdictions, while a CPC or IPC=(B60G17) would miss these families as the JP F-index is not searched with the IPC= or IPC=.
How do I search Non-Latin assignee names?
Latin and non-Latin text are indexed together in PatBase, so a non-Latin assignee name search can be run as a normal assignee search, e.g. PA=(华为)
How do I search chemical names?
Chemical names frequently contain punctuation such as brackets, commas and hyphens. To clarify that these are not to be interpreted as operators, using quotes is recommended e.g. FT=2-Amino-2-[2-(4-octylphenyl)ethyl]propane-1,3-diol. Quotes are required if the option that interprets ,-+ as Boolean operators is in use.

Recall on chemical names can often be boosted by liberal use of the underscore operator. Frequently where a hyphen can occur in a chemical name it would also be reasonable for there to be a space or no delimitation. An underscore matches either a punctuation character or no punctuation. For example, alkylamino_pyrimidine will match any of: alkylamino-pyrimidine, alkylaminopyrimidine or alkylamino pyrimidine.
How do I search numbers in PatBase?
When searching numbers as text characters in PatBase it is necessary to enclose them in quotation marks. This informs the system that you are looking for the number in the text, not attempting to recall the search line of the same number into your query:

“1” and “2” will search for the numbers 1 and 2 in the default text area of every document in the database, returning as hits any documents that contain both 1 and 2 in the selected default field. Alternatively, you can place quotation marks around the entire phrase, e.g. TAC=(“Type 2 diabetes”)

On the other hand, (1 and 2) will combine your search step 1 with your search step 2 and return any results that match both sets of criteria.