Legal Research

Patent Models on Display at Harvard

Posted on August 05, 2009
Harvard University's Science Center has a new exhibit of 19th century American patent models. The exhibit, which is called "Patent Republic," is on display until December and features about 75 patent models from the collection of Susan M. E. Glendening, a New York collector...

Patent Statistics and Economic Development: Pros and Cons

Posted on August 04, 2009
Patent attorney Stephen Nipper and fellow blogger Chris Blanchard make some interesting comments on the use and misuse of patent statistics as measures of economic development and technological innovation. Both point to the case of Idaho, which in recent years has been ranked #1 in patents per capita thanks to the presence of Micron and HP, two patent powerhouses, in Boise...

US Patent Counts, Q2 2009

Posted on July 17, 2009
The USPTO issued 48,596 patents in Q2, down slightly from 2008, and published 81,288 applications, 4.6 percent more than the same period last year. Approximately 2.1 million plant and utility patent applications have been published since 2001. The USPTO is on track to publish more than 330,000 applications in 2009, which would be the largest total on record...

Inventor of Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed, 1916-2009

Posted on June 23, 2009
The inventor of the Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed, John Houghtaling, died last week at the age of 92. Houghtaling patented his invention in 1962 (US 3,035,572), and founded Magic Fingers, Inc. to commercialize it. His company installed millions of units in hotel and motel rooms across America in the 1960s and 70s...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

AusPat v1.3 Enhancements

Posted on June 19, 2009
IP Australia has announced the release of AusPat v1.3, the new web-based Australian patent database that replaced the PatSearch system in early 2008. AusPat v1.3 enhancements include (quoting from the release memo):"e-Journal functionality has been incorporated into AusPat with the introduction of a new search field (called ?Publication?) allowing users to search by Publication Action and Journal* Range...

The Patented Mouse That Roared

Posted on June 03, 2009
This week's Nature magazine reports that two genetic research labs, Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine and the Central Institute for Experimental Animals in Kawasaki, Japan, are involved in dispute over a patent mouse. CIEA sued Jackson in December, 2008 for infringing its patent, US 7,145,055, issued in 2006...

Canada Rejects Amazon's One-Click Patent

Posted on May 28, 2009
The Canadian Patent Appeal Board has rejected Amazon's patent application (CA 2246933 A1) for its one-click online shopping feature, according to a report in ipFrontline. The Board's decision deals a blow against so-called business methods, which it believes are not patentable subject matter under the Canadian Patent Act.

Boliven Patent Goes Commercial

Posted on May 05, 2009
Boliven Patents is now a "professional-grade" fee-based service, according to an e-mail sent yesterday to current members of the Boliven Network. The service was launched in January as a free beta patent search engine with integrated analytical tools, search alerts and data export functions...

New Website Compares Patent Search Systems

Posted on April 23, 2009
Landon IP, a private firm specializing in patent and trademark searches and patent analytics, has launched Intellogist, a free website that aims to help patent searchers locate sources of patent information, evaluate public and commercial patent search systems and exchange best practices in prior art searching...

USPC Class Order #1886

Posted on April 12, 2009
The USPTO has published Classification Order #1886, which affects subclasses in Class 439 - Electrical Connectors. As of April 8, there are approximately 76,000 patents and 17,000 published applications classfied in Class 439, which is the "generic class for a pair of mated conductors comprising at least two electrically conducting elements which are interconnected to permit relative motion of such conducting elements during use without a break in electrical conductivity...

US Patent Counts, Q1 2009

Posted on April 05, 2009
The number of US patents (B docs) issued in Q1 was 49,227, a 13 percent increase over 2008. However, this may be only a temporary blip. The USPTO's campaign to improve patent quality has increased the number of rejections to a level not seen in several decades...

IPC Reforms Aim to Integrate USPTO, EPO and JPO Classifications

Posted on March 27, 2009
WIPO just announced a series of reforms that will simplify the IPC. One of the goals is to accelerate the building of a unified IPC system that integrates USPTO, EPO and JPO classifications. Could a true international patent classification system be at hand?This is a positive step and should make life easier for patent searchers of all levels of experience, from novices to experts...

Trademarks Go Green

Posted on March 20, 2009
World Intellectual Property Day is April 26, just over a month away. This year's theme is green innovation. The environment and climate change have become major political and public opinion issues in the over last few years. Companies and advertisers have certainly noticed this trend and are keen to link their products and services with environmentally friendly values...

USPC Class Order #1886 - Class 439

Posted on March 05, 2009

Canadian Patents Reach 18,554 in 2007-2008

Posted on March 05, 2009

US Issues Patent 7,500,000

Posted on March 03, 2009

USPTO Publishes 2,000,000th Application

Posted on March 01, 2009

Wikipedia References Increase

Posted on February 15, 2009
The Jan. 29 of CNET's Buzz Report has a funny rant about Apple's recently issued patent on a multi-touch graphical user interface. (US 7479949) Complaining about the USPTO's examination practices, reporter Molly Wood cites examples of existing prior art on multi-touch technology...

Titles Added to Cited References in FPO

Posted on February 15, 2009
US patent records in FreePatentsOnline now display titles of cited US patent documents. This is a nice improvement since it provides more information about the reference without forcing you to leave the current document. Titles of cited references available in the USPTO database nor are included on patent documents...

Inventor of TASER stun gun dies at age 88

Posted on February 15, 2009
Jack (John) Cover, inventor of the TASER stun gun used by thousands of police departments worldwide, has died at the age of 88. According to his obituary in the Washington Post, Cover, a former NASA scientist, invented the nonlethal device in the late 1960s in response to hijackings and riots...

Top Inventor Receives 577 US Patents in 2008

Posted on February 12, 2009
The other rather surprising statistic in the Boliven Patents Top 25 Report for 2008 was number of patents secured by the top-ranked inventor, Kia Silverbrook, founder of Silverbrook Research, a private R&D firm based in Sydney, Australia that specializes in inkjet printer technology...

Chinese University Ranks 10 in US Patents

Posted on February 12, 2009
This week Boliven Patents released its first Top 25 Report for 2008. Some rather unexpected statistics caught my attention. The first was in the university assignees category. Not surprisingly, US schools dominated the list. The top five included the Univ...

Canadian Patents Database - Representative Drawings

Posted on February 10, 2009
The CIPO's Canadian Patents Database now displays representative drawings in patent records. This is a great improvement as it allows searchers to immediately see drawings as they scan search results instead of requiring them to open up the drawing image file for each record...

New USPC Classification Orders: #1881-1884

Posted on February 10, 2009
The USPTO's patent classification office has been busy the past few weeks. Four new classification orders (#s 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884) have been published since January 1, not including the one that I mentioned the other day that established Class 850 (#1885)...

New USPC Class: 850 - Scanning Probe Techniques or Apparatus

Posted on February 08, 2009
The USPTO has created a new USPC class for inventions related to devices that scan or probe at the nano-scale. The full title is Class 850, Scanning-probe techniques and apparatus; applications of scanning probe techniques, e.g. scanning probe microscopy (SPM)...

Consolidated Glossary of USPC Terms

Posted on February 08, 2009
A new Consolidated Glossary of U.S. Patent Classification Terms is now available on the USPTO patent classification website. The glossary consists of a comprehensive list of terms taken from the classification definitions of the USPC. Terms are listed in alphabetical order and grouped by class number for easy browsing...

New Patent Databse from Boliven

Posted on February 05, 2009
Boliven, a New York-based company, has launched a free patent database called Boliven Patents Beta. The database contains data and images for US patents from 1976 to present, EP documents from 1978 forward, WO applications from 1989 forward and JP abstracts from 1976 forward...

Patent Filings Slow Amid Economic Slowdown

Posted on January 28, 2009
The worldwide economic crisis appears to be having an impact on international patent filings. This week the WIPO announced that the number of international patent application filings in 2008 increased by 2.4 percent, a big drop from the 9.3 percent average pver the past several years...

New Guide to Using Patent Information from WIPO

Posted on January 22, 2009
WIPO recently published a new 44-page guide to using patent information. The guide explains what a patent is, the information contained in a patent document, where patent information can be found, and how to use basic patent search strategies. Almost half of the guide is devoted to explaining how patent information can be used...

Locating Re-examination Certificates

Posted on January 20, 2009
Patent attorney Stephen Nipper recently posted on his blog, The Invent Blog, a question about re-examination numbers. It seems that the USPTO website has some erroneous examples of re-examination document numbers. In brief, anyone may file a request for a rexamination of a patent on the basis of prior art consisting of patents or other publications...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.