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Search Syntax

IPVision's search syntax generally follows that used by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office search site
Syntax Examples
There are basic syntax rules used by the search engine. These syntax rules apply whether you are (a) entering words or phrases in the main search box under "Easy Search" on the main page or in the field boxes under the "Structured Search" option or (b) combining words or phrases with specific Field Codes in the "Expert Search" option.

Term or Phrase Explanation More Information
tennis The most basic search is a word. This will retrieve all documents that have the word "tennis" in the appropriate field.  
tennis OR racquet An example of combining search words. This retrieves all documents that contain either the term "tennis" or the term "racquet" in the appropriate field. See Boolean Expression
tennis racquet This is the equivalent of the expression "tennis AND racquet". It retrieves only those documents that contain BOTH the words "tennis" and "racquet". See Boolean Expression
tennis NOT racquet This retrieves only those documents that contain "tennis" and do not contain "racquet. See Boolean Expression
"tennis racquet" This retrieves only those documents that contain the exact phrase "tennis racquet". See Boolean Expression
tennis AND (racquet OR racket) This retrieves only those documents that contain the word "tennis" and either the word "racquet" or "racket". See Boolean Expression
"tennis racquet"~5 This retrieves only those documents that contain the words "tennis" and "racquet" within 5 words of each other. See Proximity Searching
racquet? Single Character Wildcard: ?. This retrieves those documents that contain the words "racquet" or "racquets". The "?" tells the search engine to find all words that start with "racquet" and have any single character at the end. See Wildcard Characters
test* Multiple Character Wildcard: *. This retrieves those documents that contain the letters "test" and any other letter or letters at the end- e.g. test, tests, testing. See Wildcard Characters
router^4 or switch Relevance Boosting. This retrieves documents that contain either the term "router" or the term "switch". The search engine weights the documents giving a weight of 4 for each occurrence of the term "router" and a weight of 1 for occurrence of the term "switch". The results are displayed showing the highest weighted documents first. See Relevance Boosting
4/1/2009->4/15/2009 Date Field Searches. This retrieves documents whose "dates" are in the date range starting on April 1, 2009 and ending on and including April 15, 2009.   See Date Field Searching

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Boolean Expression
You can combine search terms using Boolean Expression, -i.e., logical operators.  The allowable operators are "AND", "OR", "NOT".
Operator Example Details
AND helmet and football Returns documents containing both "helmet" and "football".
OR helmet or football Returns documents containing "helmet" or "football" or both.
NOT helmet not football Returns documents containing only "helmet" and not "football".
NOTE: The Boolean Operators AND, OR, NOT are not case sensitive.
For the Structured Search option, simply type your logical expression into the appropriate field box.  For the Expert Search option, use the logical expression in combination with the appropriate Field Codes.
Grouping With Operators
You can use parentheses to group clauses to form sub queries. This can be very useful if you want to control the boolean logic for a query:

  • Sample Syntax: (club OR ball) AND golf

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Date Field Searching
Date fields use the format mm/dd/yyyy as in 12/10/2008.  For the month and day portion of the date field you do NOT have to pad with zeros- e.g. April 2, 2009 = 4/2/2009. Date fields can be searched for specific dates but note that in the U.S. patent applications are published only on Thursdays. To search Date Ranges: for a date field in Structured Search simply fill in the beginning and ending dates; in Expert Search specify the Field Name and use the operator "->" between the dates.
  • Search for a Specific Date:
    In Structured Search, enter in the Issue Date box:  4/2/2009
    In Expert Search, specify the field and date:  ISD/4/2/2009
    Retrieves documents where Issue Date (ISD) is April 2, 2009
  • In Expert Search, a Date Range:  APD/12/1/2008->12/31/2008
    Retrieves documents where the Application Date (APD) was in the month of December 2008.
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Proximity Searching
With Proximity Searching you can locate words or phrases that appear within a certain distance of each other in a document or field. To do a Proximity Search use the tilde, "~", symbol at the end of a word or phrase. For example:
  • Sample Proximity Search:  "golf ball"~10
    Retrieves documents where the words "golf" and "ball" appear within 10 words of each other
  • Sample Proximity Search:  "golf ball putter"~10
    Retrieves documents where the words "golf" and "ball" and "putter" appear within 10 words of each other
Note: Make sure that there are quotation marks "" around the words and that there are no spaces between the last quotation mark, the tilde, "~", symbol and the proximity number.

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Wildcard Characters
You can do single and multiple character wildcard searches within single terms (not within phrase queries). Wildcard characters can NOT be used as the first character of a word.
The Single Character Wildcard: ?
If you add a Question Mark (?) to a search word the search engine will find all words that have any character in that exact location in the word:

  • Wildcard Example: hi?    Retrieves: hid him hit his
  • Wildcard Example: te?t    Retrieves: tent test text

The Multiple Character Wildcard: *
If you add an Asterisk (*) to a search word the search engine will find all words that have any number of characters (including 0) in that relative location:

  • Wildcard Example: test*    Retrieves: test testing tests tester

You can use the * wildcard anywhere in a word except as the first character. However, using an * in the middle of a word can cast a "wide net" and may produce unwanted results:

  • Wildcard Example: th*t    Retrieves: thirst thought throughput

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Combining Wildcard Characters
You can use more than one single wildcard character (?) within a word. You can also use more than one multiple wildcard character (*) within a word. You can also mix and match these characters. If you chose to do this be very careful because the result can be a large number of hits that may not be at all relevant to your work.

  • Wildcard Example: te?t?    Retrieves: test tests text texts
  • Wildcard Example: c?r*    Retrieves: car cars carpool core corporation circle circular

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Relevance Boosting: ^5
Relevance Boosting gives you the ability to add more "weight" to one or more words or phrases in your search request. The search engine will order the search results list so that those documents with the highest weightings will appear at the top of the list based on your Boosting criteria. To Boost a term add a caret (^) at the end of the word or phrase and then add a weighting factor. A weighting factor of 2 places twice the weight on that word versus other words in the search request. A weighting factor of 4 places 4 times the weight, etc. By default, the boost factor is 1. The boost factor must be positive but it can be less than 1 (e.g. 0.3)
  • Boosting Example:  wireless and (router^3 or card)
    You are interested in wireless routers or cards but you would like to weight for wireless routers over wireless cards
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