Patent

Search and Techniques

Patent literature is a trove of valuable technical information that contains up to 80% of the stateof-the-art that is not found elsewhere (European Commission and EPO; 2007). According to
estimates from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a staggering 1.18 million
patents were granted worldwide in the year 2014 alone! Thus, there is a likelihood that an
invention has been patented earlier, or has been disclosed in a published patent application that is
either pending or has been refused. A patent prior art search helps to determine such information.
Though not mandatory, but performing a search before filing a patent application is typically
recommended as it may help in assessing the novelty and the inventive step of the invention by
unearthing relevant prior art, thus saving time and money involved in patent filing and
maintenance. However, a patent search cannot extract unpublished patent applications, as patent
applications are generally published after 18 months from the date of filing.
Databases:
Several free and paid databases are available for performing a patent search. Google Patents,
USPTO (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office), Espacenet (European Patent Offices worldwide
collection from 90+countries), J-PlatPat (Japan Platform for Patent Information), KIPRIS (Korea
Intellectual Property Rights Information Service), and Patentscope (WIPO) are the major free
databases, while XLPAT, Thomson Innovation, TotalPatent, Questel Orbit, and PatBase are a
few of the major paid database service providers. InPASS (Indian Patent Advanced Search
System) is the official database of the Indian Patent Office.

A systematic search technique is critical for finding the right prior art.
1. Technology Keywords
The first step in the search process is to identify keywords relevant to your invention. Since a
patent drafter can act as his/her own lexicographer, there may be patent literature that use nonstandard terminologies. The key to getting the right results is to be as creative as possible while
framing the search strategies. The strategy usually followed by professional searchers is to start
with broad search terms and slowly narrow it down until the results are manageable.
2. Boolean Operators:
The second step is to cluster the keywords by using Boolean operators. The most common
Boolean operators are AND, OR, and NOT. While OR is used for clustering a keyword
and its synonyms (to look out for any of the keywords), AND is used for connecting one
keyword with another. As the name suggests, NOT is a negative operator, used to exclude
keywords from a search.
Wildcards, used for truncating keywords, can be either single-character or multiplecharacters. The former is usually denoted by a ?, while the latter is usually denoted by a *
(symbol may vary depending on the database used). For example, a search for te?t in USPTO
will return results that include test and text, while a search for test* will return results that
include test, testing, tester, and testers.
3. Technology Class
A successful search must also include classification searching (Gene Quinn; 2015).
Classification systems across the world include the International Patent Classification (IPC), File
Index/F-term (Japan), and Cooperative Patent Classification (EPO and USPTO). An invention
disclosed in a patent may be classified in more than one class. Thus, it is essential to identify all
the classes that are relevant to the invention under consideration.
4. Assignees/Inventors
Sometimes it is beneficial to look at documents from inventors and assignees from similar
technology domains. Most databases have special fields for specific "Assignee Search". In order
to limit documents to a specific technology or invention, these are generally used in combination
with keywords or technology classes.
Finally, searching in the right fields of a patent specification is also important. Depending on the
keywords, the search may be restricted to abstract, detailed description, and/or claims within a
patent specification or may cover the full-text of the patent specification.

While performing a search, it is important to use all different strategies with variable scope.
Last but not least, once the results are retrieved, it is important to review the search results to
confirm whether the results are actually relevant to your invention or not!

Author Details:Sameer Goel is heading the Business Development at TT Consultants, a

leading global patent prior art search and analytics support services
company. For more updates follow us on LinkedIn.