Patent Public Search -

Advanced Search overview

Quick Reference Guide 2024

With Patent Public Search’s Advanced Search interface, you can execute simple or complex
search queries. This Quick Reference Guide introduces concepts that will enhance your search
experience.

Select Advanced Search

Go to the Patent Public Search welcome page either from

the Find It Fast menu on the USPTO home page
(www.uspto.gov) or directly from the URL link on the
right side. Select the Advanced Search button (red
rectangle in Figure 1).

Figure 1. Welcome Page

(https://www.uspto.gov/patents/search/pat
ent-public-search).

Search databases

There are 3 selectable Databases to search from:

• US-PGPUB (U.S. pre-grant published patent applications)
comprised of full text searchable U.S. Pre-Grant published
patent applications from its inception in March 2001 to
present.
• USPAT (granted U.S. patents) comprised of granted U.S.
patents containing full text of most patents issued from 1971
to present, and limited information for U.S. patents back to
1790 including patent number, date, and classification.
• USOCR (granted U.S. patents scanned using optical character
Figure 2. Databases selection option
recognition) comprised of U.S. patents dated from 1836
through 2000 that were scanned using optical character
recognition and support limited field-specific text searching. This
database also contains patent documents dated before 1836 and
back to 1790 but have limited information such as patent number
to search on.
By default, all three databases are selected but you can deselect a database using the check boxes. Use the
“Databases” arrow button (Figure 2) to hide the databases menu.
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 Search queries

Enter your query in the text box on the Search panel. Select the “Search” button to produce a listing of results
in the Search Results pane.

1. A search statement that does not use any search index (field code labels) will search through the
entire document for that term (e.g. “radar”).
2. Search indices can focus a search to designated areas of a search record (e.g., “radar.ti.”) to create a
results list of only documents with “radar” in the title; see Figure 3. Periods or brackets on either side
of the search index code inform the database that a specific search index (e.g., titles) is being
searched (e.g., “radar.ti.” or “radar[ti]”).

Figure 3. Search query in search panel

Search indexes (field codes)

3. Here is a list of commonly used search indices (field codes) found in the Help gadget under “Field
Specific Searches.” A complete listing of the searchable indexes is linked in the Help gadget panel:
https://www.uspto.gov/patents/search/patent-public-search/searchable-indexes.

Suffix Description Example

AB Searches the abstract text amethyst.ab.
AD Searches the application filing date 20120616.ad.
APP Searches the application number 10/501576.app. or
(12/123456).app.
AS Searches the assignee name text Microsoft.as.

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 Suffix Description Example
ATT Search the attorney name text (john NEAR3 smith).att.
ATTY Search the attorney/agent/firm name text (cantor NEAR3 colburn).atty.
AY or FY Searches the application filing year 2006.ay.
BSUM Searches the brief summary section medicinal.bsum.
CCLS Searches the U.S. Patent Classification and subclass 138/26.ccls.
CLAS Searches the USPC Classification text of the patent 435.clas.
CLM or CLMS Searches the claims section tube.clm. or
tube.clms.
CPC Searches all Cooperative Patent Classifications F16L11/00.cpc.
DID Searches a specific Document ID (use hyphens) US-11449323-B2.did. or
US-20220297635-A1.did.
FD Searches the application filing date 20110811.fd.
IN or INV Searches the inventor name (Smith NEAR2 John).in.
IPC Searches all International Patent Classifications G06F17/00.ipc.
PD Searches publication date 20150217.pd.
PN Searches a specific publication number 7557042.pn.
SPEC Searches the specification section collar.spec.
TI Searches the title concrete.ti.
URPN Searches the references cited patent numbers 80525207.urpn.
XA Searches the assistant examiner’s name smith.xa.
XP Searches the primary examiner’s name hook.xp.

Date Ranges: Various date ranges for application year, application date, publication date and patent year

Equal @pd=20011118
Greater than @ad>19961231
Greater than or equal to @ay>=2014
Less than @py<1975
Less than or equal to @py<=1975
Not equal to @pd<>19990216
Range @ay>=1980<=1986

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Search query options
4. Advanced Search provides Options in the Search panel as shown in Figure 4. By default, Options
are shown. Clicking on the Options arrow will hide the display of Options and provide additional
space to enter a search query.

• Default Operator: You can select a default Boolean operator for search statements
where no Boolean operator is specified. For instance, if “OR” is the default Boolean
operator, then the search “Cars Automobiles Vehicles” would apply OR to each term in
the search. It would have the same search results as the search statement “Cars OR
Automobiles OR Vehicles.”

• Highlights: You can select search terms to appear highlighted in the full-text search
records with a single color, multiple colors for each search term (and its variants), or no
highlighting.

• Show Errors: If the Show Errors box is checked, errors in search queries will appear
below the query box.

• Plurals: If the Plurals box is checked, both plural and singular forms of search terms will
be searched.

• British Equivalents: If the British Equivalents box is checked, a search of British

equivalents of American English words will also be performed (e.g., “tyre” and “tire,”
“colour” and “color.”)

Figure 4. Options in search panel

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 Search query set operators and truncation

Figure 5: Boolean set operators

5. Users can combine search terms in queries using Boolean operators; see Figure 5.

6. Variant spellings of words (including variant beginning or endings of words) may be searched using
wildcard or truncation symbols; see Figure 6.

Figure 6: Wildcard and truncation symbols

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Search query proximity operators

7. You can use proximity operators in search queries. These can be especially valuable in full-text
searching; see Figure 7.

Figure 7: Proximity operators

8. Search statements are saved in Advanced Search within a session as L numbers. Rather than
retyping a search statement, you can use the generated L number for the search to save time and
have greater flexibility in searching.
For example: “(lidar OR radar) ADJ4 sensor” is L1; “automobile OR car OR vehicle” is L2; the user
can enter “L1 AND L2” as a search statement.
The search interface allows the use of the number itself without the L to indicate a search
statement. “1 AND 2” would produce the same results. To search for a number used as a search
term, and not indicating an L number, put quotation marks around the number in your search.

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9. Stopwords are words that are not indexed for text paragraphs in Advanced Search. They give little meaning
to a document since they occur so frequently. When a stopword is used in a search query, the term is only
searched in certain metadata fields, such as assignee name and PCT data. No results are returned if the
stopword is found in the text fields or body of the document (e.g., in the Title, Abstract, or Claims.)

However, some stopwords can be searched if they are uppercase or mixed case in the metadata or body of
a document. These are searchable stopwords and indicated by an asterisk (*) in the chart. For example,
the searchable stopword “AND” will be found and highlighted in the document body. Searchable
stopwords will be found in any case within the metadata. “AND” and “OR” are searchable stopwords that
are also Boolean operators and should be searched inside quotation marks, written in uppercase letters, to
transform the operator into a searchable stopword. “As” (arsenic), “At” (astatine), “Be” (beryllium), “In”
(indium) are chemical symbols that can only be searched inside quotation marks using the mixed-case
index label .m/c. Patent Public Search does not count stopwords when figuring word proximity. This is vital
to consider when determining search strategy that uses proximity operators. For example:

(analog ADJ digital ADJ computer)

Retrieves “…a single microcomputer analog to digital computer”

[“to” is a stopword, so analog is considered adjacent to digital]

Retrieves “…determines the rate of communication between an analog and a digital computer or as a master
oscillator for equipment testing at various frequencies”
[“and” and “a” are stopwords, so analog is considered adjacent to digital]

(DNA ADJ3 Computer)

Retrieves “…the digital-DNA, then storing it on the computer’s non-transitory computer storage medium”
[“then,” “it,” “on,” and “the” are stopwords, so DNA is considered adjacent to computer within three terms]

Retrieves “…a target DNA in a sample, for example, computer-implemented methods….”

[“in,” “a,” and “for” are stopwords, so DNA is considered adjacent to computer within three terms]

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10. Patent number searching is one of the most common searches employed in Advanced Search. The
searchable index abbreviation is .pn.. The format used depends on the type of publication being searched,
see examples below. Do not use commas inside a number.

“1234567”.pn. For utility patents at least 7 digits are required.

“0000009”.pn. Depending on the length of the utility patent number, fill with leading zeroes if needed.

“11000000”.pn. More recently issued utility patents (since 6/19/2018) will accept 8 digits.
“D123456”.pn. For design patents “D” plus at least 6 digits, fill with leading zeroes if needed.

“PP12345”.pn. For plant patents “PP” plus 5 digits, fill with leading zeroes if needed.

Published patent application numbers may also be searched using .pn. with the format YYYYnnnnnnn, use
leading zeroes if necessary, after the year (‘YYYY’) to meet the required 11-digit format.

“20180093696”.pn.
Or, as a time-saving alternative you can use the PN button (see highlighted in red in Figure 8 below) to the
left of the Search button. Enter the patent/published patent application number(s) you wish to search with a
space between each one, as in this example:

(“20180093696” “6707006” ”6392195”)

Select the “PN” button. The search will execute with the .PN. searchable index (field code) applied to each
item in the entire search string.

Figure 8: PN button

You may also search patent numbers using the document identifier (ID) searchable index abbreviation .did.
See example below.

• “US-10906080-B2”.did. Requires use of Country Code, Kind Code and hyphens.