Searches may be conducted using single words, phrases in quotation marks, or multiple words combined with the operators below.

Boolean Operators

AND [or no character] Example: patent AND functional will return documents containing both patent and functional. patent functional will return documents containing both patent and functional.

OR Example: patent OR functional will return documents containing either patent or functional

NOT Example: patent NOT functional will return documents containing patent but not functional. You may also write and not or andnot.

Operators may be typed in lowercase: patent and functional works the same as patent AND functional.

Proximity Search

Proximity searches find terms near each other in a document. Use /N, w/N, or near/N (all three work the same), where N is the maximum number of words between the terms. Terms may appear in either order. For example, patent /10 functional will find patent within 10 words of functional.

Either side may be a phrase in quotation marks: functional /10 “design patent”. Numbers may be spelled out from one to ten: design /five patent.

Proximity searches may be chained: patent /10 functional /20 rejection finds patent within 10 words of functional, and functional within 20 words of rejection. Proximity also combines with Boolean operators: patent /10 functional AND rejection.

Limitations: wildcards and fuzzy terms cannot be used inside a proximity search (obvious* /20 patent will not work — instead search obvious /20 patent, or spell out variants: (obvious /20 patent) OR (obviousness /20 patent)). Parentheses cannot be joined by proximity ((patent /10 functional) /20 rejection will not work — write it as a chain instead: patent /10 functional /20 rejection).

The legacy form “patent functional”~10 also continues to work.

Fuzzy Search

A fuzzy search finds matches in terms that have a similar construction, expanding a term up to the maximum of 50 terms that meet the distance criteria of two or less.

To do a fuzzy search, use the tilde “~” symbol at the end of a single word with an optional parameter, a number between 0 and 2 (default), that specifies the edit distance. For example, “blue~” or “blue~1” would return “blue”, “blues”, and “glue”. Fuzzy terms work anywhere except inside a proximity search.

Wildcard Search

You can use generally recognized syntax for multiple (*) character wildcard searches for prefix, infix, and suffix matching. Wildcards work anywhere except inside a proximity search.

Grouping

You can use parentheses to create subqueries, including operators within the parenthetical statement. For example, patent AND (obvious OR indefinite) will search for documents containing the “patent” term and either “obvious” or “indefinite” (or both).