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Law Office of John B. Hudak, PLLC

An intellectual property law firm: patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

Keyword Patent Search in the USPTO Public Patent Search

This page is written for the USPTO Public Patent Search because each patent searching platform (such as Google Patents, and Escapenet) will have operators, which are slightly different.

What is a keyword patent search?

A keyword patent search is including expected words which would have been used in previous patent documents which may disclose elements which are considered prior art.
A keyword is a descriptive term for the technology or a term that would often be used when describing the technology.

How do I do a keyword patent search?

A keyword patent search is combination of keywords, logical operators (boolean operators), proximity operators, and truncation operators.
The keywords and operators can also be organized with parentheses.

What are the logical operators commonly used in a keyword patent search in Public Patent Search

The common logical operators (boolean operators) are AND, OR, and NOT.
AND is used to include both the keywords
OR is used to include at least one of the keywords
NOT is used to exclude a keyword

What are the proximity operators commonly used in a keyword patent search in Public Patent Search?

Proximity operators are a type of search operator used to help make searches more specific to certain scenarios. The Public Patent Search ultimately uses eight different types of proximity operators: ADJ, ADJ[n], NEAR, NEAR[n], WITH, WITH[n], SAME, and SAME[n].

ADJ checks if the two specific words are in order and directly next to each other, while ADJ[n] checks if two words are in order and within n terms of each other.
NEAR only checks if the two words are directly next to each other, while NEAR[n] checks if the words are within n terms of each other.
WITH checks if two words are contained within the same sentence, while WITH[n] checks if the two words are within n sentences of each other.
SAME checks if two words are contained within the same paragraph, and SAME[n] checks if the two words are within n paragraphs.

What are the wildcards in a keyword patent search in Public Patent Search?

The common wildcards are ending wildcards or middle wildcards.
An ending wildcard is used more often than a middle wildcard in patent searches.
An ending wildcard is $ or *. The ending wildcard will give any ending of the truncated term. (Example: rivet$ will return rivets and riveting)
A middle wildcard is ?. The middle wildcard will give any character in place of the middle truncation operator. (Example: wom?n will return woman or women)

What are examples of a keyword patent searches in Public Patent Search?

Example 1:

For instance there is a need to search for a utility patent for a chemical diffuser. These search queries can be made:

Note: this keyword search does not use proximity operators, although proximity operators are a very effective tool for patent searches and legal research in general and may not be well known outside legal research

chemical AND diffuser -- A basic search query that finds all the patents which contain the words in the query
chemical AND (diffuser OR distributor) -- A more advanced search query that uses a logical operator to search for synonyms of specific words, allowing for a wider search overall
chemical AND (diffuser OR distributor) NOT truck -- A more advanced search query that uses a logical operator to exclude unwanted returned patent documents, as in here not returning documents that are chemical distributors such as a truck, which is not the intended result of a chemical dispersing technology

Example 2:

For instance there is a need to search for a utility patent for a process of separating chemicals within a mixture of the chemicals all of which are petroleum based and the process takes place at or under 5 degree Celsius.

Note: this keyword search contains proximity operators

(((separating ADJ mixture NEAR5 chemicals) SAME petroleum) SAME3 Celsius) -- This searches for a series of terms where “separating” directly precedes “mixture”, which is no more than 5 terms away from “chemicals”. This must be contained within the same paragraph as “petroleum”, and within three paragraphs of “Celsius.”
(((separating ADJ15 mixture NEAR15 chemicals) WITH10 petroleum) SAME15 Celsius) -- This searches for the a series of terms in which “separating” is before and no more than 15 terms away from “mixture”, which is no more than 15 terms away from “chemicals.” These terms must be within ten sentences of “petroleum”, and within 15 paragraphs of “Celsius.”
((separat* WITH mix* WITH chemical*) SAME (petroleum OR hydrocarbon) SAME (Celsius OR degree OR Fahrenheit) -- This searches for the terms of separation (and variations), mix (and variations), and chemical (and variations) in the same sentence. It then searches for a paragraph that contains that sentence and the terms “petroleum” (and variations) and “Celsius” (and variations).

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