Patent search systematic and effective

Here we give a few hints on how to set up a patent search in a systematic, effective and meaningful way and how to transfer the results of the search concepts into the XPAT system.

Patent research in general

The first step is always the characteristic analysis, because first of all it is determined what exactly is to be searched for. Often, a good search fails because the search object has not been defined exactly. This is the first step if you want to research meaningful and targeted.

Thus, one creates a feature analysis from the text of the invention description (e.g. in a novelty search) or from the text of a product description (FTO search) or e.g. from an abstract (in a prior art search) or also from a patent claim (in an opposition procedure).

The found features are transferred into search strings. The minimum principle applies: as few features as possible and as many as necessary. It is best to convert each feature into a separate search string. It is important to describe the features as precisely as possible. Support struts can also be struts that support or posts that hold. Here, over time, you develop a sense of what things are called in your own area.
br> Now it is still so that one cannot formulate only the search strings in German. It is better to make the effort and at least translate the features into English (e.g. with Deepl.com). Equally important is finding synonyms. There are often several terms that describe the same or similar thing. There are interesting and freely usable technical thesauruses on the Internet. Now one can dare a first search step, in which one connects the different characteristics with "and", because all characteristics together must hit. Now one looks at the hits and will certainly get further useful information. Also one can limit the hits:

E.g. by selecting a time period. Disturbing in the sense of a FTO are only documents which are not older than 20 years, because otherwise they have no protective effect anymore. One can (and must!) also limit oneself to the relevant classes from IPC and CPC. Of course you have to try something and vary the strings accordingly. In the end, one will approach a meaningful and worthwhile search result piece by piece.

Internal patent research in XPAT

This created search strategy can be optimally implemented in XPAT, in the XPAT/Questel interface and in the XPAT Data Selection interface. Here you can develop the search step by step. Also, the existing neighborhood operators are far superior to the AND operator, because they can map factual relationships in context. If you think of depatisnet or espacenet, on the other hand, you have a lot of space to formulate a search, but in the XPAT environment you can formulate the search in its individual steps and thus optimize each substep for itself.

No matter where you formulate the search and get the hits: One can have the hits loaded into XPAT in any case or convert them into XPAT via a converter for appropriate downloads.

We are happy to help our customers with tips and tricks for their research.