The flags field can be used to search for documents that contain data within the listed indexed fields.

The syntax is:

flags:has_[Solr Indexed Field Name]

Flags are useful when you want to find all documents which contain a particular field. For example, you can use the has_cpcl flag to retrieve documents that have CPC classification, or the has_pcit flag to find documents which contain patent citations. Any indexed field can be used in a flag search, with the exception of fam since a default value of -1 is assigned to all records which do not contain a DOCDB-assigned family-id.

fam:[1 TO *]

Language-Specific Searches

A common use of flags is to retrieve sets of documents that have specific language segments (e.g., English description, or title in both English and German, etc.). 

The syntax for a language-specific query is:

flags:has_[Solr Indexed Field Name]_[Language Code]

For example, the following query returns all Canadian documents which have claims in either French or English:

pnctry:CA AND flags:(has_clm_FR OR has_clm_EN)

This example returns Japanese documents which contain claims translated into English:

pnctry:JP AND flags:(has_clm_EN)

To restrict your search to documents which contain English translations, add flags for English titles, abstracts, and claims.

For example, the following search returns English language documents with the classification code of G06F:

cpcl3:G06F AND flags:(has_ttl_en AND has_ab_en AND has_clm_en)

To search for documents which contain claims in any language, use the asterisk wild card "*":

pnctry:WO AND flags:(has_clm*)

Additional Uses for Flags

Flags can be used to exclude documents that are incomplete (i.e., documents that do not contain all fields, such as corrections and search reports) from your search. To do this, add a flag to search only for documents that contain a description. For example, the following search looks for EP A1 or A2 documents that have descriptions in any language:

pn:(EP AND (a1 OR a2)) AND flags:has_desc*

The above search returns 3179559 hits while the same search without the flag returns 3192682 hits.

Similarly, flags can be used to exclude documents which have been withdrawn or deleted. In order to maintain document histories, CLAIMS Direct retains withdrawn and deleted records in our database. However, you may want to exclude these documents from your search. Adding the has_an flag retrieves documents which have an application number, thus excluding withdrawn and deleted records.

For example, if you want to know the number of documents that were filed in China between 2000 and 2010, excluding withdrawn and deleted records, you can use the following search:

pnctry:CN AND pdyear:[2000 TO 2010] AND flags:(has_an) 

The above search returns 4381480 hits while the same search without the flag returns 4381665 hits.