3.2.1 The Table View

Once you open up a workfile you are greeted by a table that shows a single document per row. The columns show specific parts of the document like Patent or Publication Number, Title, or Earliest Priority Date. At first documents are sorted in order of relevance. Click on any column header once to sort on the contents of the column in ascending order. Click again to reverse the sort.

3.2.2 Customizing Table Columns

By default the table in the workfile browser shows columns for Patent or Publication Number, Document Title, and Filing Date. You can add more columns by clicking on the + icon that can be found on the right upper side of the table. Just mark the checkbox in front of the columns that you want displayed. Note that some columns like “Claims” or “Abstract” can take up a lot of space and are best viewed on a larger screen.

At any point the order of the columns can be changed by simply dragging the column headers to where you want them to be.

The first couple of columns holding the checkboxes, color annotation, star rating, and the “Patent or Publication Number” can not be removed from the table or moved into another position. It is, however, possible to sort on these “permanent” columns by clicking on the column header.

Customization of the table by adding columns and moving them around is saved automatically and applied to all the workfiles you look at afterwards. It is currently not possible to save these “table settings” for individual workfiles.

3.2.3 The Inline View

Clicking on the Patent or Publication Number for a specific document opens up the “inline view”, a popup that shows, in yellow highlights, where the query hits within the document. This view also shows more detailed information like patent family, legal status, and links to the PDF and patent offices. To see the entire document in LifeQuest click on the “full text” button in the upper right.

The documents in the workfile can be navigated using the UP and DOWN arrow keys. The inline view can be opened and closed using the LEFT and RIGHT arrows. This is an easy way to quickly go through all documents and see why they have been picked up by your query.

3.2.4 Pagination

By default there are 25 documents displayed on each page. This can be changed to 50 or 100 documents at the bottom right side of the page. Here you can also navigate to the next page.

3.2.5 Keyboard Shortcuts

Most of the repetitive actions on a workfile page, like navigating the inline views of multiple documents and crossing off checkboxes, can be done using keyboard shortcuts. Press the question mark (?) to get an overview of all possible shortcuts right in the page.

3.3.1 Checkbox behavior

The checkboxes within a workfile can be used for several things. For example to select documents you want to delete from the workfile, or to annotate a bunch of documents with colors or stars at the same time.

You can use the X key to toggle the checkbox on/off, and the UP and DOWN arrow keys to move focus to the previous/next document in the table.

You can work with checkboxes over multiple result pages. The checkboxes are also saved with the search results. The next time you open the same workfile, everything that was checked last time will still be checked. This is useful if you want to, for example, keep track of the documents you already looked at.

The “Actions” menu allows you to check/uncheck all checkboxes on the current page, or in the entire workfile.

3.3.2 Using Stars

You can set a zero to three star rating for every document in a workfile by clicking on stars or using keyboard shortcuts 0, 1, 2, or 3. You can sort on number stars by clicking on the column header, and filter on them using the “Filter Workfile” button.

All star ratings are remembered automatically and re-instated the next time the same workfile is opened.

The “Action” menu contains options to set or reset the number of stars for all checked documents or the entire workfile

3.3.3 Using Colors

You can set one of several colors for every document in a workfile by clicking on the color box or by using keyboard shortcuts 4 (or R for red), 5 (or O for orange), 6 (or Y for yellow), 7 (or G for green), 8 (or B for blue), 9 (or P for purple), and W (for white). You can sort on colors by clicking on the column header, and filter on them using the “Filter Workfile” button.

All color annotations are remembered automatically and re-instated the next time the same workfile is opened.

The “Action” menu contains options to set or reset the colors for all checked documents or the entire workfile

3.3.4 Deleting documents

The option to delete documents is also found in the “Action” menu. You will need to check the documents you want to delete first. Remember that deleting works on all checked documents, even those you may have clicked on other result pages in the same workfile. Deleting can not be undone.

3.4.1 Filtering By Text or Ontology

The contents of a workfile can be searched using the exact same query syntax used on the main search page. The syntax documentation is available here.

3.4.2 Filtering By Publication Number

The second tab on the filtering window lets you search for specific documents using a list of Patent or Publication Numbers. Kind codes may be added to the number, but are not a requirement.

3.4.3 Filtering By User Annotation

The third tab on the filtering windows lets you filter on user annotation like checkboxes, colors, and star ratings.

3.4.4 Combining Filters

The full text, Patent or Publication Number, and user annotation filters can be combined in any combination you see fit. Small, button-like labels right underneath the filtering window.

3.5 Exporting

Results can be exported to Excel and BizInt format. To do this, select export from the “Actions” menu, and select the format you want.

When you export of small number of results the report will be generated on the fly and send back to your browser for download. If you want to export a larger number of results, the report will be generated in the background. In that case the download link will be send to to you by email.

Filters that have been applied in the workfile browser are also applied to the export. In Excel you can choice the columns you want in the report by adding the columns in the workfile browser itself. See here on how to add columns to your view.

3.6 Highlighting

The Workfile browser remembers the original search that created the workfile, and therefore is able to highlight the terms that were used. This capability is available in the Inline view, and carries forward into the Full Patent View if you click to open that view.

Notice for instance the following inline view which has varying occurrences of the term BRCA1 and BRCA2 highlighted. This is because the workfile was created by saving the results of the following query from the Search Page:

Similarly, if you filter the workfile itself, those highlights will appear in green. For instance, imagine filtering this same workfile to search for the term SUM149. When opening the inline view, you would see the following.

Like before, these highlights are preserved in the workfile and propagate to the Full Patent view of the document if it is accessed from within the workfile.

3.7 Updates

Workfiles in LifeQuest are dynamic, meaning that if a document gets updated after the workfile has been created, there is a way to find out.

If and only if there has been any activity on the patents in your workfile, a green button at the top of the workfile will appear entitled “Show Patent Activity”. (If there hasn’t been any activity, the button won’t be shown at all.) Pressing the button will add a filter to your workfile to only show these changed documents.

Pressing the little down arrow on the button lets you decide exactly what kind of changes you want to be see. Currently there are three choices:

1. show documents that started out as an application and now have been granted,
2. show documents for which the kind code has changed,
3. and show documents for which a new family member has been published.

Below, the workfile display has changed to demonstrate only those patents for which there has been activity after pressing the “Show Patent Activity” button.

By default all changed documents since the day the workfile has been created are shown. You can chose a later date using the date widget.