Legal Research

Promoting IP Awareness - Database of Materials

Posted on January 14, 2009
The WIPO has a new database called IP Outreach in Practice which contains "basic information and links to practical examples of interesting IP outreach initiatives." It's quite an interesting collection and a great place to look for inspiration and ideas...

Browser Toolbar for Patent Info Resources

Posted on January 09, 2009
Patent Pal is a new browser toolbar that links numerous patent information tools and resources. Included are over 30 patent search sites, numerous IP blogs and newsfeeds, patent office websites, manuals, job sites, and much more. Users can customize the toolbar and add their favorite sites...

Patent Databases: 2008 in Review

Posted on January 01, 2009
USPTOEarly in 2008 the USPTO installed verification software in its Public PAIR (Patent Application Information Retrieval) system that requires users to enter a two-word code in order to access patent and published application files. This was done in response to repeated bulk downloading by web spiders and automated scripts that severely degraded PAIR's performance...

New Kind Codes for Republished PCT Documents

Posted on December 30, 2008
WIPO is introducing three new kind codes for republished international applications that will be implemented on Jan. 1, 2009. The codes are:A4 = Later publication of amended claims and/or statement (PCT Article 19) with revised front pageA8 = International application republished with corrections to front page bibliographic dataA9 = International application or ISR republished with corrections, alterations or supplements (see also WIPO Standard ST...

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U.S. Patent Counts - Year in Review

Posted on December 30, 2008
Figure 1. U.S. Patent (blue) and PGPub (red) Counts, Q42008 was a typical year for U.S. patents and published applications, but there were some surprises. The USPTO continued to churn out huge quantities of published applications (A docs), publishing slightly more than 312,000 applications this year, a 4...

PatentScope Suppresses Inventor Address Data

Posted on December 29, 2008
WIPO has announced that due to privacy concerns it will remove address data for inventors and individual applicants from its PatentScope database. The data will not be indexed or displayed in Internet search engines. This will not affect PatentScope searches or RSS search alerts...

FreePatentsOnline Launches CitePatents

Posted on December 28, 2008
FreePatentsOnline has launched a new site called CitePatents that is designed to make it easier for journalists, bloggers, copy writers and website owners and to link to patent documents. I hope this encourages more newspapers to link to patent documents in their stories...

Searching the USPC: Proximate Function

Posted on December 28, 2008
For novice patent searchers one of the most difficult concepts in the U.S. Patent Classification system is the idea that inventions can be classified on the basis of "proximate function." Proximate function is one of four schemes in the USPC used to classify subject matter disclosed in patents and published applications...

A.C. Gilbert - Inventor of the Erector Set and the "man who saved Christmas"

Posted on December 23, 2008
The other day when I was channel surfing I happened across a movie called The Man Who Saved Christmas, starring Jason Alexander as Alfred C. Gilbert, the inventor of the Erector set, one of the classic American toys of the 20th century. Gilbert became known as the "man who saved Christmas" during World War I when the U...

EPO Adds Latin American Patents

Posted on December 15, 2008
The EPO has added patent data from Cost Rica (CR), Peru (PE) and El Salvador (SV) to esp@cenet and some of its other patent data products. In addition, data from Cuba (CU) which had not been updated from 1996, will be re-introduced in the database at the end of December...

Patented in China: New Report from Thomson Reuters

Posted on December 15, 2008
Thomson Reuters has published a new report called "Patented in China: the Present and Future State of Innovation in China." Patent filings from China have been growing faster than any other region in the last few years and if the trend continues it will become the "dominant country in the patent landscape" by 2012...

FreePatentsOnline Increases Personal Portfolios to 10,000 Documents

Posted on December 01, 2008
Individual accounts on FreePatentsOnline now can contain up to 20 portfolios and up to 10,000 patent documents. Users are still limited to exporting bibiliographic data from a maximum of 250 documents at a time. These improvements will be useful for searchers who maintain large collections of patent documents or who run multiple patent searches...

Betty James, Wife of Slinky Inventor Arnold James , Dies at 90

Posted on November 28, 2008
Betty James, wife of Richard James, the naval engineer who invented the world-famous Slinky spring toy in 1945, has passed away at the age of 90. Her obit is in the New York Times. Mrs. James named the toy 'Slinky'. The Slinky is one of the great toy invention success stories of the 20th century...

Snow Bike Hits Slopes

Posted on November 28, 2008
Skiers and snowboarders may see something different on the slopes this winter... Two entrepreneurs from Vancouver Island hope to launch the next winter sports craze with their snow bike, a winter version of a mountain bike. Called the Ktrak, the bike is equipped with a ski in the place of the front wheel and a rubber track around the back wheel...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on November 26, 2008
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the States and in a few hours millions of Americans will be sitting down to a traditional turkey dinner. In honour of that noble and self-sacrificing bird, here are a few turkey-related patents. Of course, few people today actually hunt and kill there own turkey...

Canada Dry Ginger Ale at 100

Posted on November 26, 2008
A little over one hundred years ago, John James McLaughlin, a Toronto pharmacist, created one of the world's most famous carbonated beverages, Canada Dry Pale Ginger Ale, the "champagne of ginger ales." McLaughlin started in 1890 manufacturing soda water and eventually decided to create a beverage with a little more pizazz...

Patents and Biotech - a Broken System? Fixed by Information

Posted on November 21, 2008
A couple of months ago a Montreal-based non-profit IP consulting firm called The Innovation Partnership issued an interesting report calling for changes in the way biotechnology IP is created, disseminated and protected. In recent years there has been much debate in academic and research circles about whether the prolific patenting and licensing of biotechnology IP inhibits pure research and information sharing...

USPTO Annual Report FY2008 - 495,095 new applications!

Posted on November 19, 2008
The USPTO released its annual report for FY2008 and the numbers are staggering. According to preliminary statistics, inventors filed a record-breaking 495,095 applications from Oct. 1, 2007-Sept. 30, 2008. This is a 5.7 percent increase over FY2007. Interestingly, there was a 33...

USPTO Issues 68 New Secrecy Orders in 2008

Posted on November 09, 2008
A blog posting at the New Scientist magazine claims that the USPTO issued secrecy orders on 68 new patent applications and rescinded 47 older orders in the year ending Sept. 30. A total of 5,023 secrecy orders are still in effect. The USPTO reports the number of secret cases in condition for allowance in its annual report, which is usually released in November...

End in Sight for IP Australia's PatSearch System

Posted on November 09, 2008
IP Australia has announced that it will update Patsearch, its legacy patent search system, weekly on Mondays starting Nov. 22, 2008. The system will be decommissioned in February 2009. AusPat, the new patent search system, was launched in April 2008 and contains bibliographic data from about 1970 forward and full text from 1998 forward...

Patent Offices Agree on Work Sharing Initiative

Posted on November 03, 2008
Joff Wild at IAM Magazine reports that the EPO, JPO, USPTO, SIPO and KIPO have just reached an agreement on a major work-sharing initiative that will reduce duplication and enhance patent examination. Part of the agreement includes the creation of 10 "Foundation Projects"...

New Esp@cenet Improvements

Posted on October 31, 2008
It's October... the time of year when patent searchers wait and watch for news from esp@cenet. The EPO rolled out its latest esp@cenet improvements this week. The most impressive is a beta search function called SmartSearch. SmartSearch allows the user to enter terms such as inventor name, keyword, publication number, date, etc...

SumoBrain Offers Free Registration

Posted on October 22, 2008
SumoBrain, the patent search system from the creators of FreePatentsOnline, is now offering free accounts. SumoBrain features full-text cross-collection searching of US patents and applications, EP patents and applications, PCT documents and Japanese abstracts, portfolios, alerts, and PDF download capabilities (for a fee)...

Scientific Fraud and Patents

Posted on October 05, 2008
According to a report in the Oct. 2 issue of Nature, IP Australia is taking some heat for issuing a patent (AU2004309300B B2) to discredited Korean scientist Dr. Woo Suk Hwang that was based on fabricated data. In 2004 and 2005 Dr. Hwang claimed to have created a stem-cell line from a cloned human embryo...

USPC Class Orders 1879, 1880

Posted on October 05, 2008
On Sept. 2, the USPTO issued Classification Order 1879 covering changes to design class D14, Recording, Communication, or Information Retrieval Equipment. New subclasses have been established for flash type memory drives, karaoke systems and digital media recorders...

U.S. Patent Counts, Q3 2008

Posted on October 02, 2008
The USPTO published 72,421 patent applications (A docs) in Q3, a 3 percent decrease over the same quarter last year and a 6.78 percent drop from the previous quarter. On October 2, the USPTO published a record-breaking 8,955 patent applications. If these had been counted in Q3, the total would have been a hefty 81,376...

Comparison of Free Patent Databases

Posted on September 26, 2008
Patent databases continue to proliferate on the internet. The most recent addition is Patents.com, which describes itself as "one of the most comprehensive free patent search services on the web." I get a little annoyed when I see claims such as this, especially when the database provider doesn't state the contents and dates of coverage...

Patents and Wall Street

Posted on September 21, 2008
We typically think of innovation as a good thing: Needs inspire ideas, ideas develop into inventions, inventions become patents, and patents make possible new products and services that enhance the quality of human life. But is innovation ever a bad thing? Well, yes, innovation can have a negative effect when it leads to unintended or unforeseen results...

Eco-Patent Commons

Posted on September 11, 2008
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development has developed an Eco-Patent Commons, a website where companies can pledge their environmentally-friendly patents to the public domain. So far, seven companies, Bosch, DuPont, IBM, Nokia, Pitney Bowes, Sony and Xerox have pledged about 75 patents...

Arctic Biotechnology Revealed in Patents

Posted on September 09, 2008
Could more effective medicines and tastier ice cream come from the belly of a shrimp living in the icy waters off Greenland? A new report called Bioprospecting in the Arctic, sponsored by the United Nations University Institute for Advanced Studies, looks at the current state of research into useful genetic materials found in plants, animals, fish and microbes living in the far north...

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