Sorting by relevance

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paola
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2021 4:54 pm

Sorting by relevance

Post by paola » Tue Mar 09, 2021 9:43 pm

Dear Sir/Madam,
I was wondering how the sort by relevance works. On the basis of which criterion does Espacenet decide that a document is more relevant than another one?
Thank you and kind regards,
Paola


Patent Information Marketing
Posts: 359
Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2017 1:16 pm

Re: Sorting by relevance

Post by Patent Information Marketing » Wed Mar 10, 2021 2:29 pm

Dear Paola,

Sorting by relevance uses an algorithm based on elastic search to bring the most relevant documents to the top of the result list (in line with the Okapi BM25 algorithm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okapi_BM25)).

Selecting the right field identifiers in smart search or the right fields in the advanced search can also make the difference in getting the full potential out of elastic ranking. For example, if you search the word "laser" without using any specific field identifier in smart search or without specifying a specific field in the advanced search, then "laser" will be search with the "default identifier", which is in "All text fields or names". In this case the underlying algorithm will rank highly the publications that have "laser" in the applicant name or inventor name. However, if you wish to have a high relevance for documents that have the keyword "laser" in the title, abstract, description or claims instead, a more successful approach will be to use the field identifier "ftxt" or the corresponding advanced search field "All text fields", which will only search in titles, abstracts, descriptions and claims.

Kind regards,

Andrée
Patent Information Marketing


paola
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2021 4:54 pm

Re: Sorting by relevance

Post by paola » Fri Mar 12, 2021 9:07 am

Thank you and kind regards,
Paola


aricjoshua
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2021 2:24 am

Re: Sorting by relevance

Post by aricjoshua » Sun Sep 19, 2021 2:44 am

Choosing the correct field IDs in smart search or the right fields in advanced search can also make a difference in maximizing elastic ranking's potential.


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