Report:Espacenet/Search Syntax/Searchable Datafields

Searchable Datafields

In the system's early days, searchable data in Espacenet was very limited. However, a number of enhancements to the system were made over 2009-2010 that greatly expanded the searchable data available through the service. See Major Recent Updates to learn more about the timeline of enhancements that took place.

The 2010 enhancements opened the system up to full text searching in the EP and WO/PCT collections in the three official languages of the EPO: English, French, and German. The enhancements also increased the number of search terms that can be used in a fielded search, from 4 to 10 (including operators). However, one major limitation that remains is that date searches can be conducted by publication date only (not by filing or priority date).

Unlike many search systems, Espacenet presents a detailed list of what they see as their current limitations. The list below was available as of April 11, 2011.^[1]

• Maximum of 10 search terms per field.
• Maximum of 20 search terms and 19 operators per mask.
• Left truncation is not supported.
• Search terms in the abstract have to be entered in English to ensure correct results are retrieved.
• Slashes can only be used for date entries and ECLA / IPC symbol entries.
• You should not use terms defined as stopwords. These are common words such as FOR, WITH, THE, BUT, AND, OF, ANY, etc. They are not searchable as they would otherwise produce too many results.
• You cannot retrieve an XP document with the name of the author or limit a search to XP documents only.

• The following limitations apply to results in Espacenet:

• Maximum of 100 000 results per query but only the first 500 matching documents are listed.
• EP and WO documents with up to 500 pages can be downloaded in a single operation.
• Other patent documents with up to 250 pages can be downloaded in a single operation.
• Maximum of 100 documents stored in "my patents list" for one year.
• You can save a maximum of 10 queries in the query history.
• The "Download Covers" option lets you store the first pages of the documents displayed on your screen in a single PDF file.
• You can export the content of any list displayed on your screen to another application as a CSV or XLS file.
• You must enable cookies on your PC.

Below is a list of available search fields, by search form:

Quick Search

• Keyword search (for terms in the title or abstract)
• “Persons or Organization” search (conducts a search in both the inventor and applicant fields simultaneously)
• "Words in the full text of descriptions and claims" (keyword search option available for the EP and WIPO databases)

Number Search

• Number search: Conducts a search in the publication, application, priority, and non-patent literature reference number fields simultaneously. (This search is for users who have a document number of unknown origin.)

Advanced Search

• Keyword(s) in title (default operator: AND)
• Keyword(s) in title or abstract (default operator: AND)
• Keywords in full text (EP database only, default operator: AND)
• Publication number (default operator: OR)
• Application number (default operator: OR)
• Priority number (default operator: OR)
• Publication date (default operator: OR)
• Applicant (default operator: AND)
• Inventor (default operator: AND)
• European Classification (ECLA)(default operator: AND)
• International Patent Classification (IPC)(default operator: AND)

Each of the data fields in the forms above will accommodate up to ten terms, with a maximum of 20 total terms per search (this number may increase after planned future enhancements.) For the text and class searching fields, the default operator is AND; for the data and number searching fields, it is OR. When multiple terms are entered into different fields in the advanced search form, they are automatically combined using the AND operator.

The number fields in the Advanced form can be used to search by country code, without having to specify a number. For example, to limit a search to only documents published in the US, the country code US can be entered in the publication number field without any corresponding document number. No truncation is needed.

Nested queries are supported in Espacenet. In other words, parenthesis may be used within a search form to indicate the way a search should progress. For example, the search ((mouse OR rat) AND trap) could be used to indicate that documents containing either the word “mouse” or “rat” should be returned, but only if the text also contains the word “trap.”

SmartSearch

The SmartSearch interface was introduced to Espacenet to allow users to enter more than one type of search parameter into a single search box. The SmartSearch interface will then "guess" the type of input based on the formatting of the data.

Users can enter the following parameters into the SmartSearch bar and expect to have them interpreted correctly. The following is an explanation of how the form will interpret these inputs, based on information in the Espacenet help file as of April 11, 2011.^[2]

• Dates - Inputs formatted as yyyymmdd, yyyy-mm-dd, dd/mm/yyyy, or dd.mm.yyyy will be interpreted as dates. Searchers should use these two formats to ensure their date inputs are interpreted correctly.
• IPC or ECLA classification codes - Inputs that conform to classification code formats will be interpreted as such.
• Patent document numbers - If the input consists of two (or three or four) letters, followed by a sequence of digits, and optionally followed by another letter and/or a digit, then it will be interpreted as a document number.
• Names - The system interprets those words which begin with a capital letter and then contains only lowercase letters as an inventor or applicant name.
• Text - If a search term is entered that obeys none of the conventions listed above, it is interpreted as a general keyword.

The SmartSearch text box can handle up to 20 terms as of the March 2011 updates. The following list contains some limitations of the SmartSearch form, as provided in the Espacenet help material as of April 11, 2011.^[3]

• You can enter up to 20 search terms in total and a maximum of 10 per searchable piece of bibliographic data.
• Left truncation is not supported.
• Search terms have to be entered in English to ensure correct results are retrieved.
• Slashes can only be used in date formats (e.g. dd/mm/yyyy) and ECLA / IPC symbol entries.
• Limitations apply to the date formats and date range searches.
• You should not use terms defined as stopwords. These are common words such as FOR, WITH, THE, BUT, AND, OF, ANY, etc. They are not searchable as they would otherwise produce too many results.
• Full texts (claims and description) are not searchable.
• A maximum of five brackets can be used per query.

Smartsearch also supports a number of search operators, such as proximity operators. For more information, see the Boolean and Proximity Operators section of this article.

Formatting dates for use in SmartSearch

A complete description of how to format dates in SmartSearch can be found in the Espacenet help documentation.^[4]

In the SmartSearch form, dates can be formatted as yyyymmdd, yyyy-mm-dd, dd/mm/yyyy, or dd.mm.yyyy

Admissible entries :

• 2005:2007
• 2005,2007
• "2005,2007"
• "2005, 2007"
• "2005 2007"
• pd="2005 2007"
• pd="2005, 2007"
• pd="2005,2007"
• pd="2005:2007"
• pd >=2005 AND pd <=2007 will retrieve documents published between 2005 and 2007.

The above queries will all produce the same results.

• pd>=2005 will retrieve documents having a publication date greater than or equal to 2005.
• pd="200601,200603" will retrieve documents published between January and March 2006.
• pd="20060104,20060304" will retrieve documents published between 4 January and 4 March 2006.

SmartSearch Field Operators

The following table is presented in the Espacenet help materials, and is current as of April 11, 2011.^[5]

Sources

1. ↑ "Limitations." Espacenet website, http://worldwide.Espacenet.com/help?locale=en_EP&method=handleHelpTopic&topic=limitations. Accessed on April 11, 2011.
2. ↑ "Entering Queries." Espacenet website, http://ep.Espacenet.com/help?locale=en_EP&method=handleHelpTopic&topic=searchquery. Accessed April 11, 2011.
3. ↑ "Limitations in Smart Search." Espacenet website, http://ep.Espacenet.com/help?locale=en_EP&method=handleHelpTopic&topic=limitationscql. Accessed April 11, 2011.
4. ↑ "Date formats and ranges." Espacenet website, http://ep.Espacenet.com/help?locale=en_EP&method=handleHelpTopic&topic=dateformats. Accessed April 11, 2011.
5. ↑ "Field identifiers." Espacenet website, http://ep.Espacenet.com/help?locale=en_EP&method=handleHelpTopic&topic=fieldidentifier. Accessed April 11, 2011.