Searching the patent family landscape in GetFocus works through 'Vector search'. Before you continue with this article, we recommend reading about vector search first What is Vector Search?.

On the platform, you have 4 search categories: Technology, Organization, Publication number and Similar Inventions

Technology search helps you find all patent families associated with your search term(s). Use Technology search when you are looking to create a landscape of patents associated with a certain topic. This feature allows you to comprehensively identify and analyze all patent families related to your specific area of interest.

When conducting a Technology Search, selecting the appropriate search algorithm is crucial to achieving the desired balance between precision and recall. Below is a guide to help you decide which algorithm to use based on your objectives:

Agentic search deploys advanced AI assistants powered by Large Language Models (LLMs), to transform the way patents are explored and analyzed. The advanced AI assistants enable a more efficient and intelligent approach to navigating the complex patent landscape.

Advantages of Agentic Search

Limitations of Agentic Search:

Here’s an overview of how agentic search enhances patent discovery:

1. Exploring the Patent Landscape

An LLM agent expands your query by enriching it with important contextual information. By expanding your query with important contextual information, the LLM agent is able to explore a more complete patent landscape based on the underlying concept(s) rather than based on the presence of specific keywords.

2. In-Depth Analysis of Patent Landscape

Using the expanded query from step 1, the LLM Agent performs an in-depth analysis by exploring a carefully selected list of patents in detail. The process works as follows:

3. Learning from In-Depth Analysis of Patents

Using the patents analyzed in detail selected by the LLM Agent, we learn to reformulate an optimal vector search query. The process works as follows:

All of these steps happen automatically as part of one smooth workflow. While the search is happening, you can track how many patents are classified as highly relevant, which determines the final dataset returned. However, the number of relevant patents may vary depending on the specific case and the nature of the query.

Behind the scenes, the LLM checks patents across a wide range of similarity levels by dividing them into small groups. It looks at a sample from each group to help decide where the results stop being useful. This ensures you get a well-balanced and accurate set of relevant patents.

When using Smart Search to explore a technology domain, the tool leverages generative AI to transform simple keyword inputs into a context-rich, four-sentence technical description. These enriched queries are better suited for vector-based search, often yielding more relevant and comprehensive patent families.

Smart Search is ideal for quickly exploring a domain when you only have keywords to start with. However, if you’ve already crafted a detailed description of the technology, Exact Search is the better choice.

Example: Entering the keyword “Post-Combustion Carbon Capture” prompts the AI to generate a detailed, context-enhanced query, as shown below.

Exact Search preserves your original search terms without any enrichment or modification. It uses your precise input to generate results that closely align with your specific wording and intent. This approach is especially valuable when you’ve already crafted a clear, well-defined description of the technology domain you’re exploring. With Exact Search, you can trust that the results will be directly relevant to your area of focus, without any unintended expansion or narrowing of the search scope.

Organization Search allows you to find all patent families associated with one or more organizations. It is especially useful when you want to explore the complete patent portfolio of a specific company or compare multiple organizations simultaneously.

Entering Multiple Organizations

To search for multiple organizations at once, use one of the following separators:

For example: Toshiba Corp; Mitsubishi; Siemens

Note: The following characters will NOT be treated as separators

Publication Number Search allows you to find specific patents or patent families using their publication numbers. Use this feature when you need to retrieve a particular patent or search for multiple publication numbers simultaneously.

The standard format for publication numbers in GetFocus is: [2-digit country code]-[patent number]-[kind code] Example: US-20180226168-A1

To search for multiple publication numbers at once, separate them using any of the following:

Similar Invention Search allows you to find patents that are closely related to a known invention by using its publication number. This feature is ideal for discovering similar innovations and exploring adjacent technologies.

It is particularly useful for:

Example: Enter the publication number (US-5603908-A) of a patent related to Post-Combustion Carbon Capture to retrieve similar patents in that technology area based on the details in the patent.

At the bottom of the screen, you'll find the “Recent Searches” section, which displays your three most recent searches. This allows you to quickly revisit previous searches with a single click.

If a search has been saved, it will be marked with a “Saved” badge for easy identification.

Next to the “Recent Searches” section, you’ll find the “Show Search History” button. This provides a complete overview of your search history, with the ability to filter through them using keywords.

To delete a specific search, click Delete in the context menu of the relevant entry.

Note: Deleting a “Saved” search will also remove the associated dataset from its respective project.

Use the right search type for the right purpose:

Technology Search: Use Technology Search when you need to analyze the patent landscape related to a specific technology or topic. This search type is particularly useful when exploring the latest developments, key application areas in a field or other technical information—for example, understanding the innovation landscape in post-combustion carbon capture

In this case, you need to first select the Technology tab, select the appropriate algorithm type and search for "Post-combustion Carbon Capture" or "Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs)" to get the patent landscape for these technologies.

Organization Search: Use Organization Search when you need to analyze the patent portfolio of one or more organizations. This search type is especially helpful for identifying recent inventions and uncovering key technological strategic initiatives—for example, exploring Toshiba Corp’s latest patents or analyzing the past five years of innovation strategy for Toshiba Corp and Mitsubishi.

In this case, you need to first select the Organization tab and search for "Toshiba Corp" to landscape patents from Toshiba or "Toshiba Corp; Mitsubishi" to get the patent landscape of multiple companies.

Publication Number Search: Use Publication Number Search when you already have one or more publication numbers to analyze. This search type is ideal for examining specific patents in detail—for example, understanding what is claimed in KR-101189075-B1 or identifying the application areas of US-20190291042-A1.

In this case, you need to first select the Publication number tab and search for "KR-101189075-B1" to get the specific patent or "KR-101189075-B1; US-20190291042-A1" to get the multiple patents based on the publication number provided.

Similar Inventions Search: Use Similar Invention Search when you want to investigate patents that are semantically similar to a known publication number. This search type is particularly useful for identifying related innovations—for example, discovering which patents are similar to KR-101189075-B1.

In this case, you need to first select the Similar Invention tab and search for "KR-101189075-B1" to get the relevant patents that are similar to provided publication number.

After completing any type of search, all patents can be found in the Families tab.

Instructions on how to use the Overview tab can be found in Charts.

On the right side of the bar at the top of the page, you can find the “New This Month" and “Sort Results” buttons.

To see patent families which have had new activity in the last month, use the button “New This Month”. It will show both entirely new inventions that were published in the past month, as well as patent families with newly published members in the past month. Click it to apply to your search landscape, click it again to revert the selection, and go back to the original state.

The patent families in the list can be sorted by relevance or publication date. By default, your search landscape is sorted from the patent families that are most similar to your search query, to the least similar. There are other sorting options available. If you click 'Sort results', you have 4 options: Relevance descending (default), Relevance ascending, Published date ascending, and Published date descending. Relevance ascending will sort your results from least to most similar to your search query. This sorting option can be useful to determine from which similarity % patent families start becoming irrelevant (e.g. which similarity% would be a good cut-off point for your dataset to still be relevant). Published date ascending will sort from the oldest published patent families to the youngest. Published date descenging will sort from the latest published date to the oldest. Simply click your preferred option and your search results will be sorted in the preferred way.

After creating a search landscape, you have various options to filter your dataset. Vector search gets you in the right direction, but depending on what exactly you are looking for, it might be necessary to filter your landscape further. On the right-hand side, you will find multiple filters. Read how to use them in How to filter search results?. Please note that you must always click 'Filter' after applying filters to make sure your search results are updatet. The 'Clear Filters' button will clear all currently applied filters. The 'Filter' button will apply all currently selected filters.

You can click 'Next' to navigate to the next page of results. Click 'Previous' to navigate to the previous page of results. The '<<' button will transport you back to the first page of results, and the '>>' button will transport you to the last page of results. You can also enter a custom page in the free form number field to navigate to a custom page of your choosing. Simply enter the number and hit Enter.

Once you are satisfied with your search results (possibly after applying filters), you can save them. To save your search results, click the Save button located in the upper right corner above the Filters section. Click 'Save' to open the saving interface. In the saving interface, you can either select a folder you have previously created or create a new folder with the '+ New Folder button'.

If you create a new folder, you must give it a name and click the tick mark to create the folder.

Once the folder is created, you can click it to store your dataset in this folder.

Once a dataset is saved into a folder, it will appear in the Projects tab with all your other saved folders and datasets. As soon as a dataset is saved, new relevant patent publications will automatically accumulate in your dataset as long as they fall within the scope of your applied filters.

Learn about the features for managing saved projects Managing Projects.

Search results can be exported with the "export" button in the top right corner of the screen. When you click Export, a CSV file will be created with your search results which you can then download to your computer. While the export is being generated, do not leave the page. If you navigate to another page while the export is being generated, the export will be stopped.