Search Syntax

Searching The Lens can be done simply by using the search bar or the Structured Search page. After your initial search you can refine your parameters using the various faceted filters available to you. However for users who want to go above and beyond with their specificity it is also possible to use native search syntax to create sophisticated searches. Our documentation for this syntax is still a work in progress, but the core information you need to use it can be found
below.

Apache Lucene & ElasticSearch – Query Parser Syntax

The Lens uses a modified form of the Apache Lucene and Elasticsearch Query Parser Syntax. For more details on the
query syntax used, we highly recommend you read these comprehensive guides on the query syntax’s used here:

• Apache
  Lucene Query Parser
• Elasticsearch Query string query

Some important notes about the syntax:

• To search for a value in an indexed field you type the name of the field followed by a colon and then the value
  you wish to search. For example:
  • title:malaria
  • date_published:[2007-01-01 TO 2007-06-31]
• When you want to search on multiple fields you can use boolean operators which all must be upper case. For
  example:
  • rice AND pesticide
  • malaria OR mosquito
  • printing NOT inkjet
  • Lucene and Elasticsearch supports AND, OR, NOT, +
    (must include) and - (must not include) as boolean operators.
    • The default Boolean operator in a Lens search is AND e.g. blue green is equivalent to blue AND green
    • For more information on how boolean logic works, see this tutorial.
• Other operators available include:
  • Term grouping: Lucene and Elasticsearch supports using parentheses ( ) to group terms into sub-queries e.g. (red AND yellow) OR (blue and green)
  • Field grouping: Lucene supports using parentheses to group multiple clauses to a single field e.g. title:(car OR truck)
  • * and ? for wildcard searches. Note that wildcard search terms are not stemmed
    and therefore may not work as expected for searches where “Stemming” (located in “Query Tools“) is turned on. This is because when stemming is turned on, search terms are matched against stemmed values in the index. For example the terms valve and
    valves will be stemmed to valv and both match the stemmed value valv
    in the index. The term valve* will not be stemmed and therefore won’t match
    valv in the index. Read more about stemming
    on wikipedia.
  • ~ for fuzzy/proximity searches. "foo bar"~4 searches for foo and bar within 4 words from each other. Exact matches are proximity zero and word transpositions (bar foo) are proximity 2.
  • TO for range searches, e.g. date_published:[2020-01-01 TO 2022-12-12]
  • ^ to boost the relevance of a value in a search, affects the result order eg. car AND coke^2
  • \ to escape the following special query syntax characters in a search term that are not
    inside quotes:
    (+ - && || ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ ~ * ? : \ /)

Note: Searchable text fields are normalised with different filters including the removal of english stop words. The following stop words are ignored in search terms and phrases: a, an, and, are, as, at, be, but, by, for, if, in, into, is, it, no, not, of, on, or, such, that, the, their, then, there, these, they, this, to, was, will, with.

Example Queries

The following are a series of example queries to give you some examples of how the syntax works:

• transgenic rice
• lens_id:022-382-024-804-703
• inventor:"Jefferson Richard"~2
• "CRISPR gene editing"~5
• "method and system for direct recording of video information onto a disk medium"
• doc_number:20150315267
• "US 2015\/0315267 A1"
• +claim:"种循环煤泥水的高效澄清方法" – search in Chinese
  query language
• (abstract:β-glucuronidase) OR (title:β-glucuronidase)
• applicant.name:"Australian National University"
• application_reference.date:[2007-01-01 TO 2007-03-31] AND date_published:[2007-01-01 TO 2007-06-31]
• owner_all.name:"Asgrow seed company" OR applicant.name:"Asgrow seed company"
• class_national.symbol:(221\/220) – the
  forward slashes (/) in queries must be escaped by a backslash (\) if the query term is
  not inside quotes
• class_national.symbol:"221/220"
  query term is inside quotes so the forward slash (/) does not need to be escaped by a backslash

Index Fields

A list of searchable indexed fields is available from the Structured Search page.