Help on the Boolean Search Page

This page contains information on how to use the Boolean Search Page. If, after reading this page, you have any unanswered questions, please read the FAQ.

The Boolean Search Page allows you to search the US Patent Application Full Text Database using two-term Boolean search queries. There are seven steps to using the Boolean Search Page:

1. Select a year or range of years to search from the Select years to search drop-down menu.
2. Enter a term in the text entry box labeled Term 1.
3. Select which field to apply to Term 1 by using the Field 1 drop-down menu located to the right of the Term 1 box.
4. Select a Boolean Operator (AND, OR, or ANDNOT) from the menu located between the two Term boxes.
5. Enter a term in the text entry box labeled Term 2.
6. Select which field to apply to Term 2 by using the Field 2 drop-down menu located to the right of the Term 2 box.
7. Hit the Search button.

Some things to Note:

• If you want to search for a single term, skip steps 4-6.
• The search is not case-sensitive. Searching for Needle and searching for needle will produce the same results.
• When a search query has been entered, the search results and a hit list of the 50 most recent documents will be displayed.
• For some terms, you must specify the field to search in to get the hits you expect. For instance, if you are searching for an application number or inventor name, you must select 'Application Number' or 'Inventor Name' from the 'Field' menu. Searching the application number or inventor name in all fields will not retrieve hits in just this field, but rather anywhere in the body of the text. If you are having difficulty searching for a specific field, please see the Field Search Help Page.
• The Refine Search box uses the same search syntax as the Manual Search Page. See the Manual Search Help Page for help on using it. The refined search is automatically conducted in the same range of years as your original search.
• Enter a number in the Start At box to skip to a 50-increment document list containing that number. For example, with a long search results list, entering '251' in the Start At box is easier than hitting the 'Next 50 Hits' button 5 times.

The Boolean Search page provides an interface to the database for two term searches only. The features available from the Boolean Search page are:

• Two-Term Boolean Expressions
• Field Searching
• Phrase Searching
• Date Range Searching
• Right Truncation
• Stopwords

Two-Term Boolean Expressions

You can use the Boolean search page to compose two-term Boolean queries. A Boolean search is one where you specify that a specific relationship must exist between the two terms you provide. You can specify that either both must be present (the AND operator) at least one must be present (the OR operator), or the first must be present and the second not be present (the ANDNOT operator). Some Examples will help clarify.

Example 1

snowman AND kit

If you enter snowman in the Term 1 box, kit in the Term 2 box, and select AND from the Operator menu, you will retrieve a list of documents which contain both the word snowman and kit somewhere in the document.

Example 2

automobile OR motorcycle

If you enter automobile in the Term 1 box, motorcycle in the Term 2 box, and select OR from the Operator menu, you will retrieve a list of documents which contain either the word automobile or the word motorcycle somewhere in the document.

Example 3

hypodermic ANDNOT needle

If you enter hypodermic in the Term 1 box, needle in the Term 2 box, and select ANDNOT in the Operator menu, you will retrieve a list of documents which contain the word hypodermic somewhere in the document but do not have the word needle in them.

Note that you are not required to fill in the Term 2 box. If the box is left empty, the search will proceed using just the single term provided. Using this feature in conjunction with Field Searching allows for a simple way to search only in specific fields within the documents. You are not required to select a field. If you do not select a field, the system will default to "All Fields."

Field Searching

The Boolean Search Page allows you to search individual fields within documents. You can find a list of all indexed fields in the menu to the right of the Term 1 and Term 2 Text Entry boxes.

To narrow your search to hits occurring within a single field, select which field you wish to search from the Field drop-down menu. If you do not select a field, the search will default to 'All Fields.'  If you need help searching in a particular field, see the Field Search Help Page.

Example 1

If you are looking for something by an inventor named Simpson and you know it had something to do with surfing, first select "All years" to search from the Select years to search drop-down menu. Enter Simpson in the Term 1 box, then select Inventor Name from the Field 1 menu to the right of the Term 1 box. Then, type surfing in the Term 2 box, select All Fields from the Field 2 menu to the right of the Term 2 box (since you are not sure in which field surfing might appear), and select AND from the Operator menu. Hit the Search button.

Example 2

If you already know the application number (e.g. 20010000057) and year of publication (2001) and want to display that application, enter 20010000057 in the Term 1 box and leave the Term 2 box empty. Select Document Number from the Field 1 menu to the right of the Term 1 box, click on the Select years to search drop-down menu, select 2001 from the list, then hit the Search button.

Phrase Searching

A group of words enclosed in quotation marks (") will be treated as a single search term. If you were searching for the phrase Vacuum Cleaner rather than vacuum or cleaner, you would use: "Vacuum Cleaner."

Note that you cannot truncate within a phrase that is enclosed in quotation marks.

Date Range Searching

You can specify a range of dates you are interested in searching rather than having to specify a certain day or month to narrow your search. This feature is only available in date fields, such as Publication Date and Application Date. This is done by using the -> operator between two dates.

Example

Term 1: 03/15/2001->03/22/2001  Field 1: Publication Date

This query would return all published applications in the database which were submitted any day on or after March 15, 2001 and before or on March 22, 2001. If your range covers all of the applications submitted in a particular year, you will get faster results by selecting just that year from the Select years to search menu instead of searching all of the dates in that year as a range.

Note:  The selected year(s) must match the range of years you are searching.

Both dates in your query must be properly formatted for your search to work. See the help entries on Publication Date and Application Date for details.

Right Truncation

The Boolean Search Page supports right truncation in queries. This allows you to use a wildcard ($)on the right side of a search term, to retrieve words that begin with a certain string. If you are searching in a specific field, the string must be at least 3 characters in length. If you are not searching in a specific field, the string must be at least 4 characters in length. You cannot truncate within a phrase that is enclosed in quotation marks, for example searching AN/"general mot$" will result in an error.

Example

tele$

If you search for tele$, you will retrieve a large number of hits, as anything with words starting with tele anywhere in their text will be retrieved. Words like television, telephone and telecommunications would all match. To reduce the number of hits retrieved, you may want to truncate on a longer string. For example, if you are only interested in applications dealing with telephones, you might truncate as follows: telephon$.

Be aware that the default search will search every word in every application in the year(s) you specify.  This can result in very large numbers of hits.  It may be preferable to begin by limiting your search to the title or abstract fields.

Stopwords

Stopwords are terms that appear so frequently in document text that they lose their usefulness as search terms. Although they are not indexed as search terms, they will be displayed in your search results.