Searching with Odin

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 3 search categories: technology, organization, or publication number search.

Technology search 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. Organization search Organization search helps you to find all patent families associated with a particular organization. Use it when you want to explore the entire patent family portfolio of a particular organization. Publication number search Publication number search helps you to find specific patents by their publication number. Use search by publication number when you are looking for a particular patent/patent family. The standard patent publication format in Odin is: "2 digit country code-patent number-kind code". For example: "US-20180226168-A1".

There are two types of search for each search category: Exact search and Smart search. With exact search, Odin will search with exactly what you have typed in. The Smart search will always enhance whatever you type with Generative AI to create a "context-rich" query. If you press Enter after the input without clicking one of the buttons, it will perform a Smart search by default.

Technology search - smart versus exact search When searching for a technology using Smart search, Odin will use generative AI to create a context-rich query to enhance your original input (typically keywords) into a 4 sentence technical description of those keywords. Context-rich queries are generally better suited for vector search and typically result in better search results (see example below). Smart search is your best option if you want to quickly search a technology domain while only using keywords as input. If you have already carefully crafter a description of your technology domain, exact search is your best option.

You can always see how the smart search enriched your original input by clicking on the info icon located on the right side of the search title.

Exact search will not enrich your original input and will use your exact input instead. If you have already carefully crafted a description of the technological domain you intend to search for, exact search is your best option.

Organization search - smart versus exact search When using Smart Search to search for an organization, Odin will enrich your search input with other organization names that the same organization has patented under. For example, when you search for "BASF", smart search will automatically add "Badische Anilin Und Sodafabrik Ag," "Basf Coatings Gmbh," "Basf Corp," "Basf Agro Trademarks Gmbh," etc. Exact search will not enrich your original input and will use your exact input instead. For example, when you search for "BASF", only those patent families that mention exactly "BASF" as the assignee will be retrieved.

Publication number search - smart versus exact search Using Exact search for publication numbers will retrieve only the patent families whose publication numbers have been entered in the search field. You can either search for individual publication numbers or search for lists of publication numbers. The Smart search will find similar inventions to whichever patent publication number, or list of publication numbers you have entered. Please note that you can enter no more than 5 publication numbers to do a smart search. You can list multiple publication numbers in the search field using space, comma, semicolon, or line breaks. See examples below. When using Exact search on the provided input in the attached screenshots, it yields a dataset with only 4 families, as only 4 publication numbers have been given. Smart search returns over 6000 families, rank-ordered from most to least similar.

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.

Search History can be accessed by clicking on the clock icon located on the right side of the search bar on the main page.

All the searches are stored in the panel on the right side.

To delete a search from the history, click on the bin icon that appears when hovering the mouse over it. It will be deleted permanently.