Canadian Industrial Designs Database Help

Searching Tips

Status search option

Use this option to find the status of a specific industrial design application/registration number.

Enter the application/registration number in the box and click "Search".

For definition of Status terms, see Description of Searchable and Other Information Fields.

Design search option

The Design Search page is the default search page.

Simple search

Enter the name or number to be searched and choose a search field from the drop-down menu.

Boolean search

A maximum of three criteria using boolean operators (and, or, but not) can be combined to further refine searches and obtain more specific or relevant results. The operator "and" ensures that both search criteria are present in the resulting documents. The operator "or" ensures that at least one of the search criteria is present in the resulting documents, and the operator "but not" excludes words or phrases from a query.

For example, you could look for "bottle" in the Description field or "bottle" in the Classification text field. Another example would be to look for "Proctor & Gamble" in the Current owner field but not "bottle" in the Description field.

Upper/lower case letters, special characters and accents

The search engine is case insensitive. For example, if you enter "House" the search will find all words with "House", "house" or "HOUSE".

The search engine is accent insensitive. If you enter "été" the search will find all words with "été" or "ete".

The search engine is programmed to ignore punctuation marks except for the following: &, @, $, %, ^, <, +, #, | and ~. Punctuation marks are replaced by a space. For example, a search for the words "on-line" would find the words "on line", "on-line" and "On Line". Also a search for the word "R.I.P." would find the words "R.I.P.", "R I P" or "Q.R.I.P.L.E.".

Wild cards

Your query can also include wild cards (an asterisk [*] for a string of letters or numbers or a question mark [?] for a single letter or number) for more flexibility. Wild cards are useful for searching truncation and word stems (e.g. pharm* to retrieve pharmacy, Pharmaceuticals, etc.) or variant spellings (e.g. organi?ation to retrieve organization or organisation).

Add Classification

Classification codes are assigned based on the particular type of article to which the design is applied. To search with classification, type the codes directly in the search boxes and select "Classification code" from the search field drop-down menu or type words from the classification text and select "Classification text".

Alternatively, click "Classification" and select the type of article described in the Classification page. Classifications are grouped by class and sub-class.

Navigate through the classification list by clicking on the expand icon (+) and sub-classes will appear. Select the entire class or a specific sub-class by clicking the check box beside the title definition.

For a description of a class, click on its title. The description appears in a new window (unless Javascript is disabled). The "Text version" link also displays the description.

Use the "Refine" button to search for classifications containing specific articles in the title definition or in the description. Please note that this search function is accent sensitive.

You can select as many classes or sub-classes as needed. The search engine will attach the operator "or" between each selection.

The "Reset" button will reset the Classification page. Once classifications are selected, click "Search" to start the search engine. To add more search criteria, click "Back to search".

If you have difficulty navigating in the Classification page, choose the "Text version" view. The entire classification list is displayed but you will not be able to select any classifications. Terms or codes can be added to the search boxes on the Design Search page.

Registration date

This option restricts the search to a specific range of registration dates. By default, all dates are searched.

Display options

Select the result display

By default, the "Design" radio button is selected and the result list is composed of the design, the registration number and the title. By selecting the "Interested parties" radio button, the result list is composed of the registration number, the registration date, the title, the current owner and other interested parties.

Sort documents by

If the "Design" radio button is selected, you can sort the result list by:

• relevance;
• registration number; or
• title.

If the "Interested parties" radio button is selected, you can sort the result list by:

• relevance;
• owner;
• registration number;
• registration date; or
• title.

Number of documents returned

You can modify the number of hits or results displayed on the result screen. The results are ranked based on the number of times individual query words appear in the selected field(s). A hit count equal to the maximum number selected means other relevant documents may not be displayed. To obtain all relevant documents, you should increase the maximum number of documents returned or be more specific in your search criteria.

Number of documents per page

This option lets you define the maximum number of documents displayed per page of the result list. The default number of documents is ten.

Execute search

Select the "Search" button to execute the search. Select the "Reset" button to return to the default settings and enter new search criteria.

Search results

Results are displayed in a new window and can be printed by selecting the “Print” button from the browser. Click on the image to view the detailed design images. Click on the link to view the detailed information of the design.