The scope of a chemical composition or chemical formulation search can cover the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, personal care (e.g. skin care, beauty), and home care (e.g. hard surface cleaning, laundry) segments. Over the years, conducting thousands of chemical searches has taught us that finding patent or non-patent literature references with the exact combination of ingredients in the same proportions is uncommon. This is why a search expert may adjust some ingredients or amounts during the search. In other words, there may be judicious trade-offs between an ingredient’s functionality and its quantity in a given formulation. The process of deciding which ingredient to adjust first, which next; and which ingredient or set of ingredients is most vital to the formulation requires a combination of in-depth technical knowledge and IP expertise. Our extensive experience with formulation searches gives us the ability and confidence to make the right judgments and deliver high-quality, high-accuracy results.