Pitfalls of Ignoring Patent Literature

I'm always on the lookout for examples I can share with researchers, especially postdocs and grad students,
that illustrate the pitfalls of ignoring patent literature.

Here's a recent report about two polymer researchers at the Univ. of Mass. Amherst who took their
colleagues to task for ignoring older scientific research, especially patent literature, in an article published
in Langmuir. Their study used a water-repellent (hydrophobic) silicone patented in 1945 to prove that
hydrophobicity was well-known in the 1940s but apparently forgotten by today's researchers.
Here's the citation:

Lichao, G. and McCarthy T. "Artificial lotus leaf" prepared using a 1945
patent and a commercial textile." Langmuir, 2006, 22, 5998-6000

Patent Lens Adds RSS Feeds

Patent Lens, a free international patent database maintained by CAMBIA, a non-profit research institute located in Caberra, Australia, now has RSS capability. Once saved in an RSS news reader such as Bloglines, searches conducted in Patent Lens will be periodically checked for new patents and will alert you of new "hits".

Patent Lens contains 4.3 million US patent documents, 268,000 EP patents, 538,000 PCT applications and 10,000 Australian patents.

International Patent Information Conference and Exposition Announced

The dates for the 4th annual IPI-ConfEx have been announced. The meeting will take place March 4-8, 2007 in Sorrento, Italy. IPI-ConfEx is organized by a board of counselers representing various patent information professional associations worldwide. The conference is an opportunity for professionals in the field of patent information to meet and discuss patent searching, patent information management and the latest developments in patent information products.

CIPO News: IPC Implementation, New Payment History on CD-ROM

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office recently announced the availability of patent file payment histories on CD-ROM. Copies of the CD, which contains approximately 4 million payment history records from 445,000 patent documents through Dec. 31, 2005, may be obtained from the CIPO's Client Service Centre.

CIPO also announced the successful implementation of IPC-2006. CIPO began loading IPC symbols of Canadian patent documents from the European Patent Office's Master Classification Database (MCD) on Jan. 7, 2006.

Source: CIPO News Updates, July 10, 2006.

Invention Week @ Discovery Channel Canada

Discovery Channel Canada's Daily Planet, a news program about science and technology, recently celebrated "Invention Week."

Featured inventions included colored bubbles, aka "Zubbles", (US2006/0004110A1) and other cool ideas from the U.S. and Canada. Aspiring inventors will find a few useful tips in the brief "Inventor's Guide: From Blueprint to Patent."

EPO Patent Information Conference, Nov. 6-7 2006

The program for the 2006 EPO Patent Information Conference, scheduled for Nov. 6-7 in Cyprus, is now online. The conference will feature technical sessions, specialized training course and an exhibition of patent information products.