Collections

Contents

Collections are a saved grouping of patents or scholarly works. Any items in a search result can be manually added or removed from a collection. You can give your collection a name and description, import/export items or choose your sharing settings. You will need to register to make collections and access them in future. The current maximum collection size is 50,000 documents. We have two types of collections.

Static Collections

Static collections are manually curated items and are not updated automatically when items are added to our search index.

Dynamic Collections

Dynamic Collections are collections that are linked to one or more Saved Queries and updated whenever new scholarly works/patents matching the linked Saved Query are added to the search index. This allows you to keep your collections up to date, with email alerts and notifications enabling review of the newly added items to your Dynamic Collection. Any collection can be converted into a Dynamic Collection by linking one or more Saved Queries to that collection. To do this, ensure you have saved the query(s) that you want to link to your collection.

Static vs Dynamic Collection

In general, dynamic collections have more features compared to the static collection. However, selection of the dynamic or static collection depends on whether you need your collection to be up to date or not. You can use dynamic collection if you need your collection to be up to date whenever new items are added to the related search index. On the contrary you can use static collection if you do not need your collection to be updated automatically whenever new results are added corresponding to the search index.

Locations

On a search results page, you can find the “Save as Collection” button on the toolbar. You can save your current search result by clicking on the button.

On an individual patent or scholarly work, you can find “Create Collection” and “Add to collection” buttons on the toolbar. You can create a new collection or add to existing collections by clicking on the buttons.

Work Area Sidebar

You can see the “Collections” menu on the work area sidebar. You can view your collections by merely clicking on the menu.

Work Area Sidebar (Drop Down)

The Lens allows users to create an empty collection from the dropdown menu on the work area sidebar. Drop down menu “New Item” has a submenu “Collection” which led to the pop up to create a new collection.

Individual Collections Tab

You can find a collections tab on the individual patent or scholarly works. Here you can see if the relative record exists in an existing public collection.

Menu Bar

You can access all your collections from the work area menu of the menu bar of every Page of the Lens.

How to Use

Create new Collections

You can create a new collection by simply clicking on the “Create Collection” button available on any locations. Clicking on the button will lead you to the pop-up window where you can provide the name of the collection. The name you provide to the collection will be displayed on the top of the collection header of the collection page. You can describe your collection by filling in the description block. This description will appear in the collection page before the query details. You can further use this description to annotate your collection with the note. You can make your collection dynamic by clicking on the checkbox provided on the Dynamic tab. These Dynamic Collections are linked to one or more Saved Queries and updated whenever new scholarly works / patents matching the linked Saved Query are added to the search index. You can get more information on Saved Queries on Saved Queries. Choosing to display Collection Avatar from the Media tab will display your profile avatar in the collection header. Alternatively you can upload another image (.png, .jpg files) to represent the collection which can be resized and cropped after upload.

You can also manage the accessibility of the collection. There are three access options:

Restricted Access: Only you can view the collection.
Limited Access: Anyone with the link can view the collection.
Public Access: Collections are discoverable through search.

After providing all these details you can save your collection by merely clicking on the save button.

Converting an existing collection to a Dynamic Collection

Any existing collection can be converted to a Dynamic Collection by linking one or more Saved Queries to the collection. To do so;

Ensure you have saved the query(ies) with alerts enabled that you want to link to your collection.
Go to your Collection tab in your work area and find the collection you want to convert to a Dynamic Collection.
Click on the “Tools” ellipsis and select “Edit”, this will open the collection edit modal.
Select the “Make Dynamic Collection” checkbox and a list of your Saved Queries will be presented on the modal.
Select the Saved Query(ies) you want to link to your collection and click save.

Your collection is now dynamic and will be updated when there are new results matching the linked Saved Queries.

Disabling a Dynamic Collection

You can disable your dynamic collection if you no longer require it to be up to date. To disable simply uncheck the box where you marked “Make Dynamic Collection” from the edit option available on the work area collection tab or the collection page itself. You can also disable the notification on the linked saved query if you no longer require alert service.

Add to Collections

Clicking on the “Add to Collection” button allows you to add selected patents or scholarly works into the existing collections.

Remove from collection

You can remove unwanted documents from the collection by merely clicking on the “Remove from Collections” button that appears on patents or scholarly works toolbar after making a selection.

Retrieving Result with Collections

You can always retrieve all your collections on the collection tab of your workspace. On this page you can see the name of the collection you’ve created, the number of documents in it, when it was last created and updated, the sharing option of your collection and saved queries linked to the collection. You can launch a new results page listing all patents or scholarly works filtered by your corresponding collection.

Review Collection

Whenever there are new results matching the saved queries linked to the collections, the results are automatically added to the dynamic collections as well. You can review these additions to choose which documents to remove from the collection from email notification or the Lens UI notification.

Email Notification

The Lens will send you an email notification to your email address from where you can review the new additions matching to the saved queries linked to the collections. To review click on the link “View new results” which led you to the new search result page. The Lens ID filter is applied to display the new results. You can see the Lens ID filter on the Query Detail bar of the search page. From here you can choose to add or remove the document to the collection.

Lens UI notification

You can also see the notification at the top of the work area sidebar pane whenever a new item is added matching your search index. Clicking on the notification will show a new search result where Lens ID filter is applied to display new additions matching to the saved queries linked to the collection. From here you can review new items and choose to add or remove the document to the collections.

Search Within Collection

You can search within the corresponding collection from the search bar available at the top of the collection page. Searching within the collection helps to narrow down your search. The search result is the results within the corresponding collection.

View In PatCite

Using the “Tools” column, clicking on “View in PatCite” option allows to process your patent collection in PatCite and navigate all its disclosed NPL citations. For more information on PatCite please visit PatCite.

Avatar Image Customization

When creating a collection, or editing the collection, there is an option to Display Collection Avatar. If You select this by default, your Lens account profile avatar will be displayed in the collection header, but you can also upload another image that is more relevant to the subject of your collection. Deselecting the ‘Display Collection Avatar‘ option will remove the avatar image from the collection header altogether and your collection will not show an image. In addition, The Lens enables you to build your own Media Library, accessible from the collection settings or from the collection image, to store and manage your collection images.

Editing and Management

The settings tab on each collection page provides you with the editing and management options. From each collection page you can edit, delete, import, export, and manage the sharing settings of the individual collection. These options are also available from the work area collection tab.

Edit

You can edit the title, description and accessibility of the collection by clicking on the edit option available on the cog on the right.

Sharing settings allow you to make your collections public, at which point the link to that collection can be accessed by anyone (but can only be edited by you). This feature is great for sharing a collection with colleagues, or for sharing information publicly to a wider audience. Other users cannot edit your shared collection, but they can select all the documents within it and create a new collection from the result – essentially cloning it. The title and description of each patent is also shared, so you can fill this with your notes about the collection such as the method you used to develop it.

Import Items into Collection

The import items tool is a very powerful way to add large number of patents to a collection quickly. The syntax for this system is very specific and each patent ID must be entered as it is found within our site for the import process to work correctly. Note that any incorrectly formatted patent IDs will not be added to the collection, so if you are unsure of the kind code for a patent you can try adding every possible kind code and only the correct one will be added. If you are unsure of how a patent ID is represented in our system try searching for that patent and then look at how it is formatted in the URL. Also, you can import 10,000 or less IDs at a time. Using more than 10,000 IDs may fail the import.

Export

You can also export your collection in different formats for use outside of The Lens. We provide four different formats to export the collection, CSV, RIS, BibTex and JSON which you can select from the dropdown menu. You need to specify the number of documents to include in your export. We include 1,000 documents by default. You will get an email notification in your designated email address after the export is complete in which you will get a download link. For the link to work you should be signed in as the same user and the link will expire in approximately 30 days. Get more information on exports.

Delete

You can delete collections by clicking on the delete option available. The Lens will ask for your confirmation before permanently deleting the collection. You can also delete selected collections using the checkbox from “Set Actions” pane on the collection tab of the work area.

Anatomy of the Collections Page

Search Bar (a)

At the top of the collection page you will find a search bar from where you can search within the corresponding collection. You can also hide/show query details using the “Hide Query Detail” button available below the search bar. The query details document your current state of your search, in an easy to scan and logical format design to give you a snapshot of your search strategy. Get more details on query details.

Collection Header (b)

It lies on the top of the collection page and shows all the information associated with the corresponding collection. The information includes the name of the collection, date when the collection was created and updated along with the profile of the curator.

Main search result panel (c)

This panel shows all the results associated with the corresponding collection. By default, this panel shows results in the List view, but you can change it to tabular or Graphical Analysis view using the buttons in the top right. Each of these views allows you to explore your results in a different way.

List View (d)

This is the default view mode of the Lens collection page. This view mode allows you to examine your search results with extra information on the search page itself. List view shows 10 documents per page but can be made to show more using the results per page option at the bottom of the page. You can progress to additional pages using the navigation arrows and numbers at the bottom of the list.

Tabular View (e)

In this view mode, results are displayed in a table, with each result taking up a single row. To view more results on each page there is an option at the bottom of the page, next to the navigation items for paging through results. You can customize the table by adding or removing the columns from the customise table option available in the toolbar.

Analysis View (f)

The analysis view is one way of viewing results of a collection graphically. The graphical analysis allows you to analyse your search with charts, over number of facets. You can add or remove charts for analysis from this view mode. The analysis dashboard can be saved at any time and can be retrieved from the work area. You can combine multiple facets values for visualisation using a grouping function.

You can find number of collection management tools from the toolbar of the collection search page. From here you can perform number of actions like expand results, customize list, share, export, family options, hide/ show analysis and sort results by relevance. The collection toolbar is similar to the patents or scholarly works search toolbar. For more details on toolbar please see : https://support.lens.org/article-categories/patent-toolbar/

Analysis Preview (h)

You can quickly analyse your search graphically in the analysis panel on the left of the collection page. The graphical analysis allows you to analyse your search with charts, over number of facets and is great for more detailed analysis of the collection results. You can hide this analysis panel from the collection page by clicking on the “Hide Analysis” button available in the toolbar.

Citing Works/ Patents (i)

You can see the lists of all the citing works(scholar), or cited works(patents) page associated with collections.

Notes (j)

You can view all the notes associated with the collection on the notes tab on the collection page. Also, you can add notes to your collection by clicking on the “New Note” button.

Settings (k)

You can see all the information associated with the collection. From here you can edit the name description and accessibility of the collection. From here you can import into the collection and export the collection result set as well.

History

Collection History tab enable you to track changes in your collections and provide transparency to others. The History tab will be visible to the owner of the collection and any other user who has access to view a collection. History event types include Add and Remove events which can either be triggered manually or automatically. It includes add events from October 2020, while Remove events will accrue from March 2021. A “manual” trigger is when the user specifies the items to add or remove from a collection. This includes:

Importing items into a collection by uploading a list of identifiers
Selecting one or more results in a search results list
Adding to collection from an individual patent / scholarly work page

The types of Add and Remove events include:

Added Manually: Add event for items added manually to a collection.
Added via Search: Add event for items manually added to a collection from a search and includes the originating search query details for the add event.
Added via Linked Query: Add event for dynamic collections when new items are added to the collection from a linked saved query and includes the saved query details for the add event.
Removed Manually: Remove event for items manually removed from a collection.
Removed via Search: Remove event for items manually removed from a collection via a search and includes the originating search query details for the remove event.

Add events include a link to view the added works in the collection by filtering the collection to the items that were added from the specific history event. All events include an additional link to view all the patents or scholarly works that were either added or removed by viewing them in a search results list. This enables you to view all works that were added or removed, regardless of whether they are still in the collection or not. Additionally, the Query details in history events also provide a direct link to the query that was used in the event.

Notes