Article 6ter Structured Search Help

Database Content

The Article 6ter Express database includes all communications made so far under Article 6ter of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (Paris Convention) by States and international intergovernmental organizations. It is updated as soon as a new request for communication is sent to the States party to the Paris Convention and to the Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). While every effort is made to ensure that this information accurately reflects the data sent to the parties mentioned above, the only official information for a given communication remains the circular by which the International Bureau has communicated the emblems and hallmarks of a State or the names, abbreviations and emblems of an international intergovernmental organization.

Structured Search Functionality

The Structured Search page allows you to search using simple structured search. There are 5 steps to using the structured search page:

1. Choose how you want the results ranked by selecting either the Chronologically or the By Relevance Radio button.
2. Enter your search term or terms into the input box to the right of the field you are interested in searching.
3. Select an operator from menus to the left of the field or fields you are searching.
4. Select your preferred display formats under Display Options:.
5. Hit the Search button.

Some things to note:

• If you want to search for a single term or all the terms together, you can leave the operator at its default value (AND).
• The search is case-insensitive. Searching for Needle and searching for needle will produce the same results.
• The Start At box allows you to enter a number to skip to in your search results list. For long search results lists, entering '250' in the Start At box is easier than hitting the 'Next 50 Hits' button 5 times.

Search Features

• Field Searching
• Phrase Searching
• Proximity Searching
• Right Truncation
• Simple Boolean Expressions
• Adjustable Display Format
• Interactive Search Query History
• Search Statistics

Field Searching

The Structured Search page allows you to search within the individual fields found within the documents. The search page contains one text entry box for each searchable field. Also, you can select any field you want to search from the selection menu. This is useful to search for more than one term in a particular field. To narrow your search to hits occurring within a single field, just enter the term into the appropriate box, or select the desired field from the menu.

Phrase Searching

Using the structured search page, it is not necessary to surround your term with quotation marks ("). The system will automatically search for your terms occurring together as a phrase. If you wish to specify more than one term in a particular field, you should use multiple term entry boxes.

Proximity Searching

The Structured search page allows you to search for terms that occur near one another (currently, within 5 words).

Example

If you entered toy in the Article Designation box, animal* in the next box, changed the associated field to Article Designation, and selected NEAR from the next menu, you'd receive back a list of all documents which contain the words toy and animals in the Article Designation field, and in close proximity (5 words) to one another. Contrast this with selecting 'and', where the two terms are not required to be in proximity to one another.

Right Truncation

The Structured Search page supports right truncation in queries. This allows you to use a wildcard on the right side of a search term, to match words that start with a certain string.

Example

If you searched for elec*, you'd get many hits, as anything with words starting with 'elec' anywhere in their text would match. Words like electric, electronic and election would all match.

Simple Boolean Expressions

You can use the Structured search page to compose multiple term boolean queries with simple, easy-to-use tools. A boolean query is simply one where you specify that a specific relationship must exist between any two terms you provide. You can specify that either both must be true (the AND operator) at least one must be true (the OR operator), the first must be true and the second false (the ANDNOT operator), that at least one must be true, but not both (the XOR operator) or that the two terms must occur near (within 5 words of) each other (the NEAR operator). To apply an operator to a pair of terms, select the operator to the left of the second term in the pair. An example will help clarify.

Example

If you entered "phillip morris" in the owner name box, cigarette in the Article designation box and selected AND from the menu to the left of Article Designation, you'd receive back a list of all documents which contain the phrase "phillip morris" in the owner name field, and the word cigarette in the article designation field.

  Adjustable Display Format

The Display Options link at the bottom of the Strcutured Search page allows the user to select how the the results of a search should appear.

• A drop down menu allows you to select how many results to show on one results page. You can always use the 'Next X' and 'Previous X' hits button to move through all your results.
• A checkbox labeled 'Show pages in separate window' allows you to have the individual documents from your result list displayed in a separate window from your list, allowing you to keep an overview while reading.
• A series of check boxes labeled with field names (Pub. Date, Int. Class, etc.) allow you to select which items will be displayed on a search results page. Pub. No. and Title are included by default, but you can include as many of the available items as desired.

Interactive Search Query History

For users who create an account, a history is kept of the last 20 searches performed using the Hague database. Each history entry is assigned a number, listed along with a brief summary in the History frame, at the bottom of the page. History entries allow the user to click on the number next to a search and bring the results of that search up in the results window.

Four buttons below your list of history entries will allow you to update and maintain your historical list:

• Pressing the Delete Entries button will permanently remove any entries you've checked off on your list. If an entry is marked Save it will not be removed.
• Pressing the Mark Entries: Save button will set the Save mark on any entries you've checked off on your list. An entry marked Save will not be automatically deleted when you run out of room in your history list. Note: If all of your entries have been marked as saved, and you attempt to add another entry, it will be lost.
• Pressing the Mark Entries: Update button will set the Update mark on any entries you've checked off on your list. An entry marked Update will be updated to reflect any changes that have been made to the database since the original search was performed whenever you push the Update Entries button.
• Pressing the Update Entries button will update any entries marked Update to reflect any changes that have been made to the database since the original search was performed.

Note: Marking an entry Save or Update that already has that mark will remove the mark.

Search Statistics