Auspat Advanced Searching
Hello, I am Laura. I will be your guide to using AusPat. AusPat is a free online tool where you can search for Australian patents. You can also view bibliographic details for each application in your search results, as well as download the specification and other documents of interest.
This video gives an overview of how to conduct searches using our advanced search interface. It will also demonstrate how to use the selectors, save your searches, and download summaries of search results. To make the most of this video, please ensure you are generally familiar with AusPat and have watched the Introductory video tutorial if necessary.
CHAPTER 1 - ADVANCED SEARCH
This is the advanced search interface. Advanced search provides a free-text input box to give you the flexibility to create complex search queries - although this does mean that you need a good understanding of patent searching to use it effectively.
To input a search query, you can simply click in the text box and begin typing. Search queries generally consist of three parts: search terms, field codes for each search term, and an operator linking a term and its associated field with another term and its field.
Today I am going to search for patent applications relating to caravans, and in particular the wheels of caravans. My first search term is wheel – this is entered in lower-case. I now need to link this to a field. A field is the place where the search term is located in the data. I only want to look for patent applications which have the word wheel in their abstract, so I type IN AB. IN is an operator which tells AusPat to look in a particular field, and A B is the field code for the abstract field, which you can see from the Available fields box below the search box. Because the abstract field is a full text field I need to tick the "Include Full Text Search" box.
Because I'm looking for caravan wheels, I want to add the International Patent Classification or IPC mark B60P3/32 to my search. This IPC mark is the international symbol for vehicles comprising living accommodation for people, including caravans. As I want to look for applications which talk about both wheels and caravans, I need to link my two search terms with the operator AND. Then I can include the IPC mark and the field code IPC. IPC marks are entered with no spaces between the letters and numbers.
On second thoughts, I also want to include documents which talk about the axle of a caravan, but might not mention the word wheel in their abstract. Because I want to look for abstracts with either the word wheel OR the word axle, I need to use parentheses and the OR operator. Parentheses provide you with greater control over how AusPat interprets your search query. So to do this I put an open bracket before wheel, then I add my operator and search term, before ending with a closed bracket. Writing it like this will ensure that I get all applications with the IPC mark B60P3/32 and either wheel or axle or both words in their Abstract. Now I can click "Search".
Looking through my results I can see that there is an application about boat campers. I don't want this application appearing in my results. So I go back to my search query using the "Refine your query" link. So that AusPat doesn't return results with the words boat camper in the title I need to enclose all my initial search in parentheses. I then add the operator NOT and the phrase "boat camper" in the title field. To search for an exact phrase, the phrase needs to be enclosed in quotation marks. I also need to ensure that the "Include Full Text Search" box is ticked. Now when I click search you can see that the Boat Camper application has been excluded from the results.
What if I want to broaden my search to include all vehicles which have been adapted to carry a load? I click on Refine your query which takes me back to the Advanced Search screen. I want to change my IPC mark to include all vehicles covered by the group B60P. To do this I delete 3/32 and add a wildcard after P. This wildcard matches zero or more characters in AusPat. If I search on this, ensuring that the Full Text Search box is ticked, the number of results has increased to 199.
For more information about search terms, field codes, operators and wildcards check out the AusPat User Guide.
CHAPTER 2 - SELECTORS
In the Advanced Search interface I also have the ability to use the selector tools to find Inventors, Applicants and to select a publication action. The links to these selectors can be found here in the Available fields box. I am going to open the Applicant Name selector by clicking on the link.
You can use this selector to help locate all variations in an applicant name. If I type the applicant's name, csiro, the selector gives me a list of all variations of this name. To add names to the search, you can click on each name and then click the "Add selection to your search" button. You can now search on these names or add other search terms to your search.
CHAPTER 3 - SAVING SEARCHES
Using AusPat’s MySearches feature allows you to save a search string that you will use often. I am going to save this search by clicking on the plus symbol found next to my search summary. This opens a pop-up box which asks you to enter a name for the search. I'm going to call this one caravan wheels. When you click OK the search is saved into the MySearches list. You can see that the MySearches box now has the number one in brackets. To access the search, click on the MySearches box. To execute a search, you need to click on the name of the search. From here you can also load a search you have saved on your computer, save searches as a text file to your computer and combine two selected searches together. You can also clear the entire list, delete individual searches, or view the search string of a search. AusPat allows you to save a maximum of 10 searches to MySearches.CHAPTER 4 – SAVING SEARCH RESULTS
AusPat gives you a couple of options for saving or downloading the results of your search. At the bottom of the search results page there is a "Download Application Numbers" link. If you click this link AusPat will give you the option to open or save a text file of all the application numbers from your search. I will open this file.
For greater functionality and flexibility it is recommended you use the MyList function. MyList enables you to download bibliographic details for up to 300 applications. To add an application to MyList, you tick the box found at the end of the row. If you want to add all the applications on the page you are viewing, tick the box in the heading row.
You can see that now the MyList box has the number of applications I added in brackets. To access this you click on the MyList box. From here you can go to an application by clicking on the number and you can also delete individual applications by clicking the cross, or clear the entire list by clicking on the link. Most importantly, you can download and save a bibliographic summary of all the applications as either a PDF or CSV report. I want to create a PDF report, so I click on the button. And I just want to view the report, so I click Open. You can see that AusPat has created a summary of those applications for me.
Thank you for watching this presentation. To find out more information about AusPat, check out the User Guide found on our website and at the bottom of each page in AusPat. We would also love to hear from you. You can provide feedback using the form located at the bottom of each page in AusPat, emailing us at assist@ipaustralia.gov.au or by calling 1300 65 1010.
Last Updated: 05/12/2012
