Expander Rows in Search Result Grid
The Search Result grid is set up very much like a spreadsheet with familiar options for sorting and re-ordering. The spreadsheet-like view is helpful to quickly assess your search results.
However for doing a semi-detailed level-one analysis of each patent, it is helpful to view more information than what is available in the standard, single line view. For that reason, we have the expander rows with several different ways to view the data, depending on what information you need to see for your results set.
Opening and Closing Expander Rows
To open the expander rows, you can either open all the rows by clicking on the small + icon in the top bar (1) or clicking on the small + icon on an individual expander row (2). Note that the + icon toggles between the + and the - so you can open and close the view as desired.
The Views
There are four different views for the expander rows:
1) Bibliographic View
2) Images View
3) Family View
4) Image View
Depending on the type of information you want to see at a glance would depend on what type of view you set. Let's say, for example, you are doing a Freedom To Operate search. In that case, the Family View might be the view that you want to have in the Search Results.
For the first two views, in the top tool bar, click on View-->Expander Row Content. For the third view, you would actually click on the Family Search Mode up in the top right of the Search Results grid. You can also set this from the original Search box (it is also up in the top right of that Search box). Any view you select will stay that way until you change it back. In other words, think of this as an additional Preference that you set.
The Bibliographic View
The Bibliographic view includes a fully exposed abstract and representative image, as well as additional information such as the classes and assignee names. It is a great way to quickly view a large set of patents if full details are not required. For example, if you are doing a very quick knockout search, this might be the view that you want to have in the Search Results.
Notice that the check box is still available on the left. "Interesting" patents can be checked, then added to a Research Folder for a deeper analysis at another time.
The Images View
The Images view really includes two views. The images by themselves, and the images with the abstract on the left. In the example above, I have checked the Images, but have left the Show Abstract box unchecked. This view shows all of the images, although, depending on the number of images and the size of your screen, you may have to scroll to the right to see the additional images.
Note - you can also toggle back and forth between the Images view and the Bibliographic view by clicking Ctrl+i
If you are mostly interested in seeing the images first to help you determine if you should dig deeper into the patent data, this is the view that you want. Depending on the technology space you are in, this view can be extremely helpful to see similar products very quickly.
Family View
The Family View includes all of the Simple Family members. This view is displayed by toggling the Family Search Mode in the upper righthand corner on and off.
In this view, note that you do still see the representative image and the abstract, but instead of the classes, assignee names, etc., you will see a list of the Simple Family members for the main patent in focus. This list has multiple columns of data that you can see there, too. And although there are not as many columns as in the main search results, the columns operate in the same way. This means that you can sort ascending/descending by clicking on most of the column headers, and you can hover over the column header, click the down arrow that appears, and add or remove columns from the family list grid.
Note - in the family list, you will sometimes see a darker yellow, and sometimes see a lighter yellow. AcclaimIP tags any family members that meet the search criteria with a darker yellow color. For instance, in the example image above, the Japanese patent is a darker yellow. This means that the Japanese patent has the search terms "electric" and either "vehicle" or "car" somewhere in the title, abstract, or claims, since I used the TAC field code. However, the EP document directly below it in the list is a lighter yellow. This means that the EP document does not have all of the search terms. Perhaps the term "car" was translated as "automobile" or some other synonym.
Also note that the Family Dedupe is turned on by default with this view, and is grayed out. You will not be able to change this option when the Family Search Mode is toggled on.
Image View
This Image View is actually quite different from the Images View listed as number two. To get to this view, in the Search Results toolbar, you click View-->Image View. Note that once you have selected this, the View-->Image View will become View-->Grid View. Select this new Grid View option to go back to other view options. In other words, once you have selected the View-->Image View, you cannot just click the Bibliographic view without clicking View-->Grid View first.
In this view, you will see one representative image from each patent and nothing else. AcclaimIP will automatically set as many representative images as the screen size allows. So if you zoom in or out, or if you have a very large monitor, you will be able to see a lot more representative images (such as in the example above). You can then scroll through the images for each individual patent by clicking the left and right arrows located above each representative image.
This view is not used as often anymore in AcclaimIP, but some clients do find that this is a really good way to view a lot of images quickly to find something that might be of more interest to them. This completely depends on the technology space you are filing in, as some images are more visual. However, this view may provide you with what you are looking for much quicker than looking at the Images View with all of the images in a row.
0 Comments
Add your comment