Depending on whether you use the Invention Navigator Portable R&D, Professional or Premium, different options are available for the applicant search. In all versions you can search in the EPO-Standard by using text input or selection search. In the Professional version you can additionally use the selection search and text input in the original name. As a new feature, the Invention Navigator Premium offers the search with the help of manual applicant grouping or automatic applicant grouping (SIP-Standard).

Input of applicant names in the text field

You can search for applicants by pulling the respective search fields into the search mask. "Enter Name " is automatically selected and the input field is activated. You can enter the applicant's name into the text field and work with truncations or Boolean operators, as known from the text search.

With the Invention Navigator Portable R&D you can only search in the EPO-Standard. As a Professional or Premium version user you can choose if you want to search in the EPO-Standard names, the original names or the INPADOC data. It is possible to simultaneously search in all three applicant fields.

In many cases there is no standardization of the applicant name and the EPO does not supply standardized names in the DOCDB database. Therefore the original name is loaded in the EPO-Standard field of the search4ip database. This way, also applicant names are found which do not have a standardized name.

Once INPADOC is selected you also search in the legal status texts. This way you can also find patents which, because of a change in owner (as long as the information is available in the INPADOC database) have transferred to the ownership of the applicant searched for. It may occur that the results are falsely positive, as this search in legal status code texts contains all applicant information. Therefore information about licenses, declarations of assignment, etc. are also found. To avoid this, it is recommended you perform the search via legal status search an select the respective codes. The INPADOC search often delivers documents which do not contain text information (e.g. D-1 documents). It is therefore recommended that you use the family extension when searching for applicant names in combination with text search.

A safer method is to use the selection windows. Depending on your rights the following features are available to you:

• Original name (INav Portable Professional, Premium)
• EPO-Standard (INav Portable (R&D), Professional, Premium)
• SIP Standard (INav Portable Premium)
• Manual Applicant Grouping Search (INav Portable Premium)

Simply click the respective button, e.g. EPO-Standard. A new window will open. The window is divided in two parts. In the upper half, the applicant names found in the database are displayed. In the lower half, the applicant names selected by you for research are displayed.

In the upper text field (grey writing: applicant) enter the applicant name you would like to search for (wildcards are allowed). Start the search by clicking on the button “Search” . This way you will find all spellings which are contained in the global database and contain the search term. By using CTRL A you select all entries of the list. By using CTRL/Shift and mouse click you select multiple entries in the list.

Alternatively you can use the All and Term button. By clicking the Add button you can transfer the selected applicant names into the lower window. Already selected names are displayed in blue in the selection list. Individual entries can also be transferred into the lower field by double clicking.

Below the search field you find another input field with the title "All entries". If you enter a term into this field the search results are filtered and only entries containing this term are displayed. Use the filter in order to simplify the selection of applicant names.

By clicking on the column name "Name" you can sort the list of applicant names.

To delete applicant names which were selected this way from the lower list, proceed as follows. Select the names (CTRL, Shift and mouse click) you would like to delete and click the Delete button.

After selecting the applicant names, transfer them into the search by clicking the "Add to search" button. This way you can also enter multiple applicant names and add them to the search.

The search for the selection lists "Original names", "SIP-Standard" and "Grouping" takes place the same way as outlined in the example for the EPO-Standard.