.The semantic search assistant lets you find similar patent families based on freely entered text. Taking steps to select relevant concepts and families will allow for a relevant "more like this" search.
Please note that the left-hand menu can be collapsed by
clicking on the button .
The question marks will allow you to open up help menus to make it easier to use the assistant.
The Coverage details link takes you to Questel's site and see what's new in the FamPat collection.
The Guides and tutorials link shows you the list of tutorials and guides available in Orbit.
The FamPat fact sheet is also present and can be downloaded: FamPat collection indices.
At the top of the page, you have an input field for a quick search symbolized by a magnifying glass. You can directly enter a keyword or a name: the search will be performed in text fields + applicant + inventor. The hyphens are automatically replaced by the joint operator. A list of words in English and French was edited so that certain words are automatically deleted (e.g. the, a, to, is, in, with, by, an, for, of, be, on, are, which, from, as, at, that, has, when, where ...). If a field is specified, the search will be conducted specifically on that field. You can use truncation and operators.
If you enter a number, the nature of it will be recognized and research will be done on the number search fields of publication, application or priority, unless you specify a different field.
If you enter a part of a classification code, it will be searched in the IPC and CPC classification fields.
Clicking on the arrow at the end of the line will display your search history in a dropdown menu. By clicking on the number of results, you will display the list of results.
The arrows at the bottom of the page allow you to navigate from page to page. The double arrow to refresh the contents of the history.
Free-form text searching
The free-form text field lets you enter any phrases of text describing the technology, or to copy/paste an excerpt of text into it. It should be noted that at least one paragraph is required for the search to run.
The text can be entered in English or in another language. If you choose a text in another language, it will be automatically translated by Google. The Clear button deletes the text indicated in the free-form text field.
The Next button takes you to the second step of semantic search. A progress bar for concept extraction appears.
Selecting concepts
Using the previously indicated text, concepts have been extracted and are shown in the selection window.
Some concepts are already checked off; you can uncheck them and/or check off others.
The Show more concepts function can be used to search for additional concepts. To do so, you will need to enter a keyword in English or another language and click on Search. The relevant concept tree appears. You can drill down in the tree by clicking the arrows, then checking off one or more concepts that you want to add to the previous list. The OK button confirms your choice, the Cancel button closes the window without confirming the selection.
The X at top-right closes the concept selection window without adding any concepts.
The Next button confirms your concept selection and takes you to the next step.
Selecting relevant documents
Selecting the concepts causes a list of relevant families to appear. This list was generated using the similarity function. The list is ordered according to Relevance Score (RS).
By default, the list is displayed as a "detailed list" with the abstract and cover page. This cannot be changed.
Clicking on a family's title brings up bibliographical information.
Families are selected by checking the selection boxes.
The 
arrows at the bottom of the
window are used to navigate between families.
The arrows at the bottom of the window are used to navigate between pages.
The Browse in Orbit button lets you display all families in the Search module's hitlist. From this hitlist, you can change how it is displayed, incorporate families into lists, export certain families, etc. You have now left semantic search.To return to semantic search, you will need to select the search assistant in the Menu tab and repeat the free-form text selection and concept selection steps.
The Back button takes you back to the concept selection step./
The Search button confirms the selection of relevant families and launches a "more like this" search based on them.This button is accessible once a family has been selected.
Search similar patents
A similar patent search has been performed on the selected relevant families. The "more like this" search uses the CPC codes assigned to a particular patent in order to automatically find all patents classified with the same code(s), as well as the IPC codes, US codes (PCL field), citations (citations in common, cited and citing patents), extended family (priority numbers in common), and concepts.
The results are sorted by relevance, and the Relevance Score (RS) is displayed.
The KWIC tab is used to highlight the criteria considered to be similar. Those criteria are bolded.