Table 1.
Types of available search interfaces for Espacenet, Patentscope and Depatisnet.EspacenetPatentscopeDepatisnetNumber searchYes (“Smart Search”)Yes (“Simple”)Yes (“Family”)Form searchYes (“Advanced Search”)Yes (“Field Combination”)Yes (“Beginner”)Command line searchYes (“Smart Search”)Yes (“Advanced Search”)Yes (“Expert” and “Ikofax”)Full-size tableTable optionsView in workspaceDownload as CSV
3.2.1. Command
line searching & search fieldsEspacenet\'s Smart Search interface is a “Google style” single entry multi-search field. The function is named “smart”, because the search engine tries to automatically recognize the type of search field corresponding to each search term. For example if “Bayer 1999” was entered, the system will identify the German company Bayer as an applicant or inventor and 1999 as a publishing year.
In addition, Espacenet\'s Smart Search allows command line searches using operators and field identifiers [11], but many users are not aware of this purchase 3-Deazaneplanocin functionality. As shown in the example in Fig. 5 operators and field identifiers were used to retrieve nanotechnology-related patents with Bayer as an applicant, the keywords “nano” and “tube” in the abstract and 2010 as publication year (see Fig. 6).
Fig. 5. Command line search with “Smart Search”mode (screenshots from Espacenet-reproduced with permission).Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide
Fig. 6. Number of available Fields in each Search Interface.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide
When flame cell comes to the number of available search fields in each of the available search interfaces, Patentscope provides the most powerful search interface with 51 search fields available [12], followed by 36 in the command line search of Depatisnet (Expert and Ikofax search) [13], and 16 in Espacenet\'s Smart Search [14].
The approach taken to enable number searching in patent databases is another important aspect to consider, since unfortunately the syntax of patent publication numbers is not always the same and can differ from database to database. Compounding this problem is the fact that publication numbers can vary from one country to another.
For the comparison of how the number search engines were able to handle this problem we took a PCT patent application from a nanotechnology-related patent publication entitled “Method and system of feeding a carbon nano tubes to a fluid for forming a composite material”, published in the name of Bayer International with its corresponding international publication number “WO 2010/118896 A2” as highlighted in Fig. 7. We checked how the compared search systems were able to retrieve the document using several different possible syntax variations of the publication number.