lens_count: Retrieve patent counts from a query to the Lens
In poldham/lensr: Access the Lens Patent Database

Description Usage Arguments Details Value Note Examples

Used for testing only. Returns the results from a query to the Lens. Useful for working out the overall number of results from a query for refinement or download.

lens_count(query, boolean = "NULL", type = "NULL", applicant = NULL,
  applicant_boolean = "NULL", inventor = NULL, inventor_boolean = "NULL",
  publn_date_start = NULL, publn_date_end = NULL,
  filing_date_start = NULL, filing_date_end = NULL, jurisdiction = "NULL",
  families = "NULL", timer = 20)

`query`	One or more terms to search in the patent database.
`boolean`	Select the type of boolean ("OR" or "AND") where using multiple search terms.
`type`	Either fulltext (default), title, abstract, claims, or title & abstract & claims (tac). Quoted.
`applicant`	An applicant name or vector of applicant names
`applicant_boolean`	"AND" or "OR".
`inventor`	An inventor name or vector of inventor names.
`inventor_boolean`	"AND" or "OR".
`publn_date_start`	The publication date as the starting point for searching. (YYYYMMDD)
`publn_date_end`	The publication date to search until (YYYYMMDD).
`filing_date_start`	The filing data as the starting point for searching (YYYYMMDD).
`filing_date_end`	The filing date to search until (YYYYMMDD).
`jurisdiction`	Limit the search to a single jurisdiction (default is all) e.g. "US" or choose inbuilt group "main" for the United States (US), European Patent Office (EP), Japan (JP) or the World Intellectual Property Organization (WO) for the Patent Cooperation Treaty.
`families`	Set to TRUE to retrieve only counts of patent families "NULL" (default) or FALSE will return publications and families.
`timer`	set the time between calls in seconds when using a vector of search terms. Default = 20 seconds.

Where a boolean operator ("OR" or "AND") for multiple search terms is not specified, the function will treat each as a seperate search term and return a data.frame with rows for each term. If the operator is specified the combined results are returned.

data.frame

For consistency, the output of the function is always a length 3 tibble (data frame) listing publications, families and the search query. Where only families are requested (families = TRUE), publications will be recorded as "NA" in the output. Where, on rare occassions involving very low results, the Lens returns results only and no families the result is equivalent to families and publications will be copied across to families and a message provided.

## Not run: lens_count("drones")
lens_count("synthetic biology", type = "tac")
lens_count(c("drone", "drones"), timer = 5) %>% print()
lens_count(c("drone", "drones"), boolean = "AND", timer = 5) %>% print()
lens_count(synbio, boolean = "OR", type = "tac") %>% print()
lens_count(c("gene drive", "gene drives"), boolean = "OR", families = TRUE, timer = 10) %>% print()
## End(Not run)
## Not run: lens_count(c("gene drive", "gene drives"), boolean = "OR", families = FALSE, timer = 10) %>% print()