Report:FreePatentsOnline/Search Interface/The Search Forms/Search Bar
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Search Bar
The search bar is a quick, one line search field located at the top of every page in FreePatentsOnline. Entering a query in the search bar will perform a date-sorted all text search of United States (US) patents and applications. All valid syntax and operators can be used.
Editor's Note:The search bar is ideal for people looking for a quick patent search. Since the search bar is located at the top of every page within FreePatentsOnline, not only is it available wherever the user is, it is also the first search option users see. From this perspective, some novice searchers may not seek out the more in-depth search functionality of the Expert and Quick Search forms. If they fail to do this, they will not only miss the ability to search in specific sections of patent documents, but will also miss the ability to search in the European Patent Office Collection (EP), Japan (JP), or Patent Cooperation Treaty (WO/PCT) documents- which may have been of interest. Also of note, the results are displayed in chronological order, so users looking for the latest related patent will be pleased but users looking for the most relevant patent will not be. This is in contrast to the simple one line search from Google Patents, which displays the most relevant patents first. Keeping these points in mind, it is a nice option for people who only care about speed, at the cost of finding more, or more relevant prior art.
