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How to browse PiggyBank's Trade Mark Indexes

PiggyBank mantains four indexes which are browsable, these are: All of these are also searchable.

In order to browse any of the indexes, click on the links in the left panel. In order to set the initial position in an index, enter the initial term in the 'Simple Trade Mark Scan' text box before clicking on the link for the particular index.

How to use PiggyBank's Trade Mark Scan Service

PiggyBank's Trade Mark Quick Scan is a command driven database querry engine. Commands are sent to the search engine by entering them in the Trade Mark Quick Scan text box.

Commands are made up of statements which may optionally be grouped together using parasenthesis. A statement is a combination of search words and operators, operators define an action. Search words are case sensitive. The database is in uppercase, but disclaimed elements and device descriptions are in lowercase. A list of operators and their actions are as follows:

Operator Description
 *  The uniary operator '*' stands for 'any characters may preceed' or 'any characters may follow' depending on whether it is prefixed or is a suffix to a search string.

Example:
*FOX Used as a prefix, means entries that have words ending in 'FOX'
FOX* Used as a suffix, means entries that have words begining with 'FOX'

 ~  The uniary operator '~' will match the phonetic equivelent of the word it is prefixed or sufixed to. If prefixed, the soundex algorithm is used, and when suffixed, the metaphone algorithm is applied. See note on phonetic searching below.

Example:
~FOX Used as a prefix, the SoundEx algorithm is use to look for phonetically similar words.
FOX~ Used as a suffix, the Metaphone algorithm is use to look for phonetically similar words.

 &  The binary operator '&' means AND.

Example:
FOX* & *FOX Entries that have words that begin with 'FOX' AND words that end with 'FOX'.

 |  The binary operator '|' means OR.

Example:
FOX* | *FOX Entries that have words that begin with 'FOX' OR words that end with 'FOX'

 !  The binary operator '!' means NOT.

Example:
FOX* ! *FOX Entries that have words that begin with 'FOX' but do NOT end with 'FOX'.

 ()  Brackets '()' may be used to group statements, dictate precedence or improve readability

Example:
(FOX* | *FOX) ! FOX Entries that have words that begin with 'FOX' or words that end in 'FOX' but not the exact word 'FOX'

   The default operation, if no operator is specified, is to assume an OR.

Example:
FOX* *FOX is the same as FOX* | *FOX. Entries that have words begining with 'FOX' OR words that end in 'FOX'.

Note on phonetic matching:

SoundEx or Metaphone act as a bridge between the fuzzy and inexact process of human vocal interaction, and the concise true/false processes at the foundation of computer communication. As such, these algorithms are inherently unreliable interfaces.

For this reason, these algorithms, produce high false positives (when words that don't match the sound of the inquiry are returned) and high false negatives (when words that match the sound of the inquiry are NOT returned).

This limitation is true even when using two algorithms although, it is possible to reduce the false positives or false negatives by using appropriate search strategies.

Example:

Entering (~FOX & FOX~) in a querry will reduce the number of false positives, because we do not expect both the algorithms to have the same set of false positives. But at the same time there will be an increase in the false negatives.

Entering (~FOX | FOX~) in a querry will remove some false negatives, but will increase the false positives.