Something

private String rewriteLuceneQuery(String query) {
		StringBuffer buf = new StringBuffer();
		StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(query," ",true);
		while(st.hasMoreTokens()) {
			String token = st.nextToken();
			if(token.indexOf("patent_number:") != -1) {
				String patent_number = token.substring(token.indexOf("patent_number:")+14);
				if(patent_number.startsWith("(")) {
					patent_number=patent_number.substring(1);
				}
				String co = patent_number.substring(0,2);
				String se = patent_number.substring(2);
				for(int x=0;x<se.length();x++) {					
					if(!Character.isLetterOrDigit(se.charAt(x))) {
						se = se.substring(0,x);
						break;
					}
				}
				while(se.length()<8) {
					se = "0" + se;
				}
				buf.append( "+co:(" + co + ") +se:(" + se + ")");
			} else {
				//buf.append(token);
			}
		}		
		return buf.toString();