Keyword Search Options

The Keyword Search page include three search settings for refining your search results: Section Display, Result Detail, and Plurals.

For the Section Display menu, the default All setting will automatically highlight in the hit list all 6-digit design codes for any division matching your search criteria, as DSCM users are advised to review all design codes for any division retrieved by their search criteria, as multiple design codes in the division other than those that exactly match the search criteria may be relevant for the design element. The alternative Matched setting highlights only those 6-digit design codes that actually match your search criteria in the hit list, providing a reduced results list that exactly match your search criteria. In either case, you are advised to review the full display of any division retrieved by your search criteria to determine all relevant design codes for your design elements.

For the Result Detail menu, the default Brief setting limits the lines of text provided in the results list, allowing users to review the results list more quickly to select the most relevant sections to review on the full display. The alternate Detail setting provides expanded entries in the hit list, providing such information as Specific Guidelines occurring in the divisions retrieved for your search criteria. For convenience, the results list page includes a toggle box to allow you to switch between the Detail and Brief views without returning to the Keyword Search page.

For the Plurals menu, the default setting Yes instructs the search engine to retrieve both singular and plural forms of your search terms. For example, the search term DOG with retrieve occurrences of DOG or DOGS. The alternative No setting restricts the search engine to retrieve only the singular/plural form of the search term submitted. For example, if the Plurals setting is No, the search term CAT will not retrieve occurrences of the plural form CATS. In general, we advise using the default Yes setting for this Plurals option to retrieve both singular and plural forms of your search terms.

Please Note: The Keyword Search feature opens a search session for the DSCM similar to the TESS search engine for searching pending and registered trademarks on the USPTO website. An effort has been made to execute the DSCM search engine transparently to the DSCM user, but search result pages are virtual pages created by the search engine; consequently, the URLs of those virtual search result pages will vanish once the DSCM has determined that your search session is no longer active. Please use the Logout button at the end of your DSCM search session so that resources dedicated to your search session can be released for others to use. If your DSCM search session is idle for about 2 hours, the DSCM search session is considered abandoned by the search engine, as though you had select Logout to terminate your DSCM search session.

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