Tips on Field Searching

This page contains tips on the use of fields in your searches. In case of any problem, please mail to bali@hub.nic.in.

Patents are divided into many fields, such as inventor name. By narrowing your search so that a document is only counted as a 'Hit' if the term you are searching for occurs in the field you specified, you can greatly decrease the likelihood of having extraneous patents returned.

To make field searching easier, we've compiled a list of all the available fields.This contains information about each, and tips on their use.

















Application Number (AN)
Definition: The application number of the patent.

Tips: This is 15 characters long e.g. 196600006608137


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Application No. Priority (NP)
Definition: Data indicating in which countries an application claims priority.
Tips: e.g. de19666608137

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International Class (IP)
Definition: The International classification(s) the patent has been placed under.

Tips:To search for International Class G06F 19/00, you can search G06F0190000

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Patent Number(PN)
Definition:is unique number assigned by respective patent office to a granted application filed by inventor/applicant

Tips:To search on patent number one can give publishing country code+patent no. (without leading zeros)

e.g. wo9501234, wo200223123, us6012891

Without Publ. Country :

e.g. 9501234, 200223123, 6012891

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Inventor(TI)
Definition:is the name of the person(s) who is/are registered on patent application as the inventor(s).

Tips:one keyword each box

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Applicant(AP)
Definition:is the name of one or more persons or organizatios which are registered as proprietor of a patent application. The applicant can also be the inventor.

Tips:one keyword each box

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Title(TI)
Definition:is title of the patent

Tips:one keyword each box

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Equivalent Patent Search
Definition:Same Patent published in other countries with same priority

Tips:Select publishing country from the list in Equivalent Search and enter the patent no.

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Proximity Search
Tips:Proximity search can be conducted on three fields. Fields are

Applicant Name,Inventor Name and Title

If length of keyword is less than 4 one must use % sign at the end of keyword e.g. ibm%

The % sign can also be used with keywords of length more than 4 e.g. comp% ==> This will return all patents having compute,computer,computers...


One can search either on a single field or combination of fields e.g.

Applicant and and

Inventor and and

Title and and


will return all patents with applicant IBM and Title computer,computers.....

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