5. Mistakes to avoid

5.1 Don't neglect the wording of your requests

If you don't get any results from the query, it doesn't mean that there isn't any data to match your request. In fact, in 95% of cases, it's because the question has been asked incorrectly.

If you get too few references, you'll miss the peripheral set of the subject, where the innovations often lie. Rephrase the question to get more answers.

Do not formulate queries in French, but in English (some titles and abstracts appear in other languages in the EPO database, but this would lead to a very partial search). For example, TI = welding leads to the selection of 22 records, whereas TI = welding leads to the selection of over 100,000 records.