Downloading Foreign Patents

When I need to download a copy of a patent for myself or a client, I usually go right to esp@cenet. Since esp@cenet includes ~60 million patent documents from more than 70 countries, the odds of finding a patent or at least a family member are very good. However, sometimes I discover that esp@cenet won't let me download the patent I want because it is too long (~80 pages or more). This is no big deal if it's a US patent... there are plenty of other websites where I can download PDF copies of US patents. But if it's a patent from another country, things get a bit more complicated... Below are a few alternate patent sites that don't have page-limit restrictions.

PatentScope (WIPO)
PatentScope is a database of published international PCT applications maintained by the World Intellectual Property Office. You can download copies of PCT applications and cited national priority applications in PDF or TIFF formats. If your patent or application was cited as priority document in a PCT application, you should be able to obtain a PDF copy from the PatentScope record. How do you know if your patent was cited in a PCT application? Easy: simply look up the patent family in esp@cenet and check any PCT applications that are included.

DEPATISnet (German PTO)
DEPATISnet is esp@cenet's little brother, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in smarts. DEPATISnet doesn't cover nearly as many countries as esp@cenet but it does cover the major and several minor patent offices. Documents are stored in PDF and can be easily downloaded with no page limit restrictions. (I recently used DepatisNet to retrieve a copy of a 121-page German patent application from 1975.)

Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) System (USPTO)
If the desired foreign patent was cited in a US patent issued after June 30, 2003, a PDF copy should be available in the electronic file wrapper stored in the Public PAIR system. You can find US patents that cite foreign by searching the number in the FREF field in the PatFT database. If you get a hit, simply retrieve the US patent's file wrapper from PAIR and look up the foreign reference. All cited foreign patents are labeled "foreign reference", so you may have to look at a few until you find the right one.

GCN Report on USPTO e-Filing System

Government Computer News has a report on the success of the USPTO's new e-filing system, EFS-Web. Since the system went into full product in March 2006, the USPTO has:

• Seen new applications filed electronically rise to 60 percent
  
• Received 850,000 application and other documents via EFS-Web
• Trained 30,000 people to use EFW-Web
• Saved $7.8 million

Clothing Design Patents

<-- The "Frau Blucher" <-- The "Rosie the Riveter"

<-- The "Marian the Librarian"


















Here are a few clothing design patents from the mid 1940s. Not exactly stylish by today's standards, but hey, there was a war on.

As I reported a few days ago, clothing designers rec'd thousands of design patents in the 1930s and 1940s.

US Classification Tools - New Feature

The USPTO's online classification search system has a new feature that will make browsing classification schedules much easier. Users can now use an "Outline" feature to collapse any schedule from its normal full display to just its mainline through level five indents. Users can also click on -/+ symbols on the left side of the schedule to collapse or expand individual sections.

Fig. 1. Outline On/Off and Level Menu are Located at the Top of the Schedule












Fig. 2. Class 623 Collapsed to Mainline Indents

Fashion Designers Look to Copyright, Not Design Patents

An article in today's New York Times discusses the growing threat that high-end fashion designers face from low-cost imitations of their most popular clothing designs. Their industry trade group is lobbying Congress to extend copyright design to clothing. Copyright already protects fabric, textile and jewelry designs, and patterns for sewing, knitting, needlepoint, etc. In some cases, trademark and trade dress law will protect a unique clothing design or element such as the stitching on a pair of jeans.

The fashion industry seems to have forgotten that clothing is eligible for design patent protection. Perhaps copyright's longer term (the life of the author plus 70 years or 95 years for works made for hire) is simply more attractive than the 14-year term for design patents. Or perhaps copyright is more difficult to "design around" than design patents.

But there was a time in the mid-20th century when clothing designers loved design patents. In fact, approximately 15 percent of the design patents issued in the 1930s and 1940s were for apparel and haberdashery designs (Class D2 in the USPC). Many of these designs were for dresses, robes, pants and other garments typically sold in department stores and mom-and-pop clothing stores.

Curiously, clothing design patents took a nosedive on the catwalk in the 1950s and 60s, and bell-bottomed out in the 1970s. Only 2 percent of the design patents issued in the 1970s are in Class D2, which also includes footwear. They rebounded in the 1980s and 1990s thanks to the growing market for athletic shoes. Almost 50 percent of the D2 design patents issued since 1990 were assigned to Adidas, Nike and Reebok.

Why did the fashion industry turn its back on design patents? Was it a change in patent law? Unlikely, since a few clothing designs are still patented each year.

Clothing Design Patents, 1900-2007

Politicians and Patents

Although politicians make patent laws, very few have had any real first-hand experience as inventors.

Perhaps the best known politician-inventor is President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln, an attorney from Springfield, Illinois who had a life-long interest in inventions, received patent No. 6,469 on May 22, 1849 for a method of buoying vessels over shoals. (Amazingly, Lincoln filed his patent application only 73 days earlier on March 10—a pendency no modern inventor could hope for!)

The least known politician-inventor may very well be Harold LeClair Ickes, also of Illinois. Technically, Ickes was not a politician since he never held elected office. But he was politically active and campaigned for various progressive Republicans in the 1910s and 1920s. And In 1933, Ickes was appointed Secretary of the Interior by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a position he would hold until 1946. Independently-minded and honest, Ickes is noted for his competent management of the Public Works Administration, opposition to corruption and hostility toward facism.

When he wasn't out campaigning for progressive causes, Ickes was an avid gardener and cultivator of dahlias. Shortly after Congress enacted a new law extending patent protection to certain asexually reproduced plants, Ickes applied for and received a plant patent for a new variety of dahlia that had an unusual and striking blend of colors described as coral red and Eugenie red. Unlike Lincoln, who had a response in less than three months, Ickes would have to wait 1 year, 5 months and 1 day for his patent.

Harold Ickes' Dahlia, Plant Patent No. 19

U.S. Patent Counts, April-June 2007

Table 1. Patent Counts, Week 1-26, 2007

Quarterly Patent and PGPub Counts

Q1 | 47,332 | 74,277 | 121,609
Q2 | 45,828 | 76,640 | 122,468
Q3 |
Q4 |

Published patent applications (A docs) surged in Q2, setting two new records for weekly and quarterly totals. On June 28, the USPTO published 7,082 A docs, an all-time high. The average number of A docs per week in Q2 was 5,895. The total number of A docs for the quarter was 76,640, a 4.1 percent increase over the same period in 2006. The total number for January through June was 150,917. At this rate, the total number of A docs published in 2007 could easily exceed 300,000, which is still significantly short of the 450,000-475,000 new applications the USPTO will receive this year. It is almost certain that new records will be set in the second half of the year and into 2008.

Patent issues (utility, design, reissue and plant) remained flat in Q2, averaging only 3,525 patents per week. The total number of patents issued in Q2 was 45,828, a 16.3 percent decline from the same period in 2006. The total number of patents issued from January through June was 93,160. At this rate, the USPTO will issue approximately 186,000 patents in 2007, a decline of about 5.4 percent over 2006.

The graph above shows the "peaks and canyons" phenomena that has been so typical of U.S. patent counts over the past year. The "peaks" are spikes in the number of published A docs, gradually increasing in frequency and size over the past six months. Patent issues, on the other hand, are relatively stable from week to week with an occassional drop off that produces a "canyon" in the otherwise flat profile.

Changes are afoot at the USPTO that could in the near future impact the output of A docs and issued patents. The USPTO has introduced rules that would limit the number of continuing applications an applicant could file. Since, according to the USPTO, up to one third of all new applications are continuations, this could lead to a decline in the number of new filings. Which is exactly what the USPTO is expecting (and praying for).

Statistics are compiled from the USPTO patent (PatFT) and published application (AppFT) databases.

ChemSpider Adds Patent Data

Despite the proliferation of open access patent databases over the last ten years, chemists and life scientists have found it difficult to search for patents related to chemical compounds. This is largely due to the fact that patent offices do not index their patents by chemical name, structure, registry number, etc. Although the USPC and IPC have extensive chemisty classifications, many chemists find patent classification difficult to use and of limited value.

There have been recent unsuccessful attempts to incorporate patent data into open access chemistry databases. Several years ago, the American Chemical Society, which publishes Chemical Abstracts, pressured the NIH to drop plans to integrate patent data into the agency's PubChem database of small molecules.

Researchers now have a new way to find patent information related to chemical substances. ChemSpider(Beta), a new open access chemistry database and federated search engine released in March of this year, recently added patent data from U.S., European and Asian patent offices. Users can search more than 16.5 million chemical compounds in ChemSpider by structure, property, and various indentifiers including systematic name, synonym, trade name, registry number, SMILES or InChI.

For example, the ChemSpinder record for the arthritis drug Celebrex, links to 382 related U.S. patents as compared to 9 patents listed in the FDA's Orange Book. The Orange Book only includes patent data for unexpired patents.

Peer-to-Patent Program

Nice article explaining the goals and expectations of the new pilot patent peer review program sponsored by the USPTO and New York Law School.

Peer-to-patent pilot steers toward change

U.S. Patent Coverage in Scirus

Yesterday I posted some detailed information about patent coverage in Scirus. Here is a more detailed breakdown for U.S. patent coverage:

Utility patents, 1790s-
Reissue patents, 1870s-
Design patents, 1976-
Plant patents, 1976-
Defensive publications, not included
Statutory invention registrations, 1985-
Additional improvement patents, not included

Defensive publications and additional improvement patents appear not to be included at all. Additional improvement patents were allowed from 1836 to 1861. Only about 320 issued. The USPTO registered 4,488 defensive publications from 1968 through 1988. DPs are published abstracts of unexamined patent applications. The entire file of a DP, including a copy of the application as filed, may purchased from the USPTO. DPs were superseded by statutory invention registrations (SIRs) in 1985. Both additional improvement patents and defensive publications are available in the USPTO patent database.

Scirus covers plant and design patents from 1976 forward. Design patents were first registered in 1842 and plant patents in 1931.

You can retrieve a specific US patent by searching the number as a keyword using the following formats:

Utlity USnnnnnn
Plant USPPnnnnn
Design USDnnnnn
Reissue USREnnnnn
SIR USHnnnn

Patent Reform - the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

There has been a lot of hot air this summer regarding patent reform legislation. Depending on what you read, the proposed Patent Act of 2007 will either 1) Save the U.S. Patent System or 2) Destroy the U.S. Patent System. Since there are several provisions that would affect patent documents (for example, mandatory 18-month publication) librarians who work with patent information should be aware of the issues. Here are a couple of articles that cut through the rhetoric and legalese and provide simple overviews of the key issues and players.

Guide to Current Patent Reform Legislation
ipFrontline, 10 Aug 2007

Patent Reform - Why Being in the Middle is the Right Place
IPO President Marc Adler

Scirus Patent Coverage Details

Scirus, the free scientific information search engine provided by Elsevier, includes millions of sci-tech documents, including data for some 21 million patents obtained from LexisNexis. Here's an exact breakdown of Scirus' patent coverage:

EPO from 1978 (grants and pregrants)
JPO from 1976 (pregrants, English abstracts only)
UK from 1916 (pregrants)
USPTO from 1790 (grants#) and 2001 (pregrants*)
WIPO from 1978 (pregrants**)

# US coverage does not appear to include plant patents before 1976.
* The USPTO began publishing utility and plant patent applications in 2001.
** Published PCT applications.

Many thanks to Danianne Mizzy of the Engineering Library, University of Pennsylvania for this scoop.

esp@cenet Survey

The EPO is running an online survey to gather feedback on what users find most and least useful about esp@cenet, and access to free patent information in general.

The EPO has an excellent track record of listening to users, so don't miss this opportunity to suggest improvements. Some improvements I'd like to see are the ability to sort search results and better integration of the ECLA classification search. While I love the ability to search and browse ECLA, transferring ECLA codes to the search form is clunky.

Note to Canadian residents: The survey asks users to identify their location. Unfortunately, Canada was omitted (by accident, I'm sure) from the list of countries. A request for correction has been made.

Perpetual Motion Patents

The Economist tackles perpetual motion machines in an article appropriately titled "Perptual Nonesense". It should be noted that inventors have been pursuing this dream since the beginning of our patent system. Here's what one patent attorney thought about it a century ago:

"The solution of perpetual motion apparently still captivates those who believe in the possible successful solving of such a machine, though the vain efforts of centuries have done nothing beyond showing failure and the wanton waste of energy and money from its votaries. That this Will-o-the-Wisp is still being pursued is evidenced by the continuous so-called new discoveries which are launched with great regularity as the "Eureka" of some mechanical mind".

Source: The Inventor's Universal Educator by Fred G. Dieterich, Washington, D.C., 1911.

Patent Lens Update

Some exciting news about Patent Lens, one of my favourite patent databases...

Patent Lens now includes bibliographic data and full-text images for Australian A and B docs from 1998 to the present. As far as I can tell, this is about the same coverage as esp@cenet (although country code plus year searches are giving me some very odd results for pre-2002). Patent Lens now covers some 7 million patent documents, including US, European and WIPO.

In another very exciting development, it is now possible to search gene sequences using NCBI's BLAST search software. This very cool and powerful tool allows users to search DNA and amino acid sequences in US patent documents. Definitely check it out. Biochemists and biotechnology researchers will love it.

Unfortunately, Patent Lens still doesn't include IPC classifications, making it virtually impossible to do a focused search by subject matter. You can search IPC codes (and national classifications) against the front page text, but this approach is inaccurate and unreliable. Despite this shortcoming, Patent Lens is still one of the most useful and innovative open-source patent search tools on the web.

Hawaiian Patents

During a recent vacation in Hawaii, my wife and I had the pleasure of visiting the beautiful 'Iolani Palace, the official residence of Hawaiian monarchs in the late 1800s and the only royal residence on U.S. territory. The building was constructed between 1879 and 1882 during the reign of King David Kalakaua (1874-1891). Kalakaua wanted the 'Iolani to showcase the independence and sophistication of the Hawaiian people and spared no expense in its construction. It contains slate from Pennsylvania, Italian marble, the finest Hawaiian wood, and steel columns from San Francisco.

Kalakaua, an "early adopter," was a fan of Thomas Edison, whom he met on a trip to the U.S. in 1881, and equipped the 'Iolani with cutting-edge technology imported from around the world. The 'Iolani was the first royal residence in the world to have modern indoor plumbing, electric lighting and a telephone. Even the doors are outfitted with the latest patented transom-lifters designed by John F. Wollensak of Chicago. (A transom is a hinged window located above a door that can be opened for air circulation.) Each transom-lifter lever was labeled with the "PATD" and the date of the issued patents (I've included the numbers in parantheses): March 11, 1873 (#136,801); March 10, 1874 (#148,538); and July 20, 1880 (#RE9,307).

Kalakuau also equipped his Royal Guards with the latest European and American weapons. In the 'Iolani Barracks located next to the Palace you can view two 12 pounder breech-loading cannons designed by William H. Driggs of Washington, D.C. Commander Driggs (1847-1908) was a ordnance designer for the U.S. Navy who patented many improvements in rapid-fire artillery and ammunition. The 'Iolani cannon bear two patent dates, April 5, 1887 (#360,798) and February 28, 1888 (#378,828).

One of the earliest U.S. patents granted to a resident of Hawaii was issued on August 15, 1876 to William Brede, a resident of Lihue on the island of Kanai, for a new improvement in shaping attachments for engine-lathes (#181,032). After touring the 'Iolani, I reflected on the fact that Hawaii in the 1880s, a remote island nation with a tiny population, was both importing and exporting the latest patented technology.

Inventions on the Silver Screen

I enjoy movies about inventors and the process of invention. Many are fun family movies, such as The Absent Minded Professor and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Others lionize inventors, such as Young Thomas Edison and Edison, the Man, both released in 1940, and Francis Ford Coppolo's 1988 film Tucker: the Man and His Dream. My favourites are films that explore the competitive side of invention. One such film I recently read about is a Japanese movie called Black Test Car directed by Yasuzo Masumura. The movie, which was made in 1962, is about industrial espionage between two car manufacturers vying to build new sports cars.

Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread

The Globe and Mail's popular "Social Studies" column often reports interesting facts about famous inventors and inventions. Today's column include a few lines about the inventor of sliced bread, Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa. Until the late 1920s, virtually all bread was sold in loaves and sliced by hand. Rohwedder's machine rapidly and economically produced symmetrical slices. (US1867377, US1700854, etc.) According to the European Patent Office's esp@cecet patent database, Rohwedder received at least 26 US and Canadian patents related to bread, including one for a bread display rack (US1591357).

Plant Patent Article in Gardening Newsletter

Plant patents don't usually get much attention in the news, so I was delighted to see a short well-written article on plant patents in the June 2007 issue of Lee Valley & Veritas gardening newsletter. Lee Valley & Veritas is a gardening and woodworking tool retailer in Canada.

In 2006 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued approximately 1,150 plant patents with 432 (38%) awarded to U.S. inventors. The next highest total was the Netherlands with 212 (19%) plant patents. Five plant patents were awarded to Canadian inventors in 2006.

Italian Design and Patents

Italian designer Gianfranco Ferre died yesterday from an apparent massive brain hemorrhage. He was 62. He achieved international fame during his career at Christian Dior, where he was top designer from 1989-1996. Fashion designers work in the space between art and invention, and are not known for filing patent applications. Ferre was no exception. He received only three US design patents for a jewelry chain (D343,372), wristwatch (D294,919) and a "twin-shared pocket for a garment" (D294,651). Of course, these represent just a tiny part of his vast portfolio. His contemporaries Donantello Versace and Giorgio Armani hold 14 and 5 US design patents, respectively. I've always been curious why fashion designers such as Ferre, Armani and Versace even bother with patents in the first place. Is it their decision or their employers?

PCT Publication Date Changes - May 17, Sept. 7, Dec. 21

According to the WIPO, official holidays in Switzerland this year will delay the date of publication for PCT applications as follows:

• Ascension: Thursday May 17, 2007 - Publication date: Friday, May 18, 2007
• Jeune Genevois: Thursday, September 6, 2007 - Publication date: Friday, September 7, 2007
• Eid al-Adha: Thursday, December 20, 2007 - Publication date: Friday, December 21, 2007

Searching 19th Century Patents

During a recent visit to the Shelburne Museum in Vermont, I snapped this photo of a handsome iron matchbox on display in the museum's 19th century general store. The cover is embossed with a hunting scene... a dog carrying a duck.

It wasn't clear to me when the matchbox was made, but the text "PATD JAN 21 1862" suggests that the design was patented on January 21, 1862. It was common practice in the 19th century to include the date of issue but not the patent number on patented products, especially articles of manufacture. Fortunately, it is possible to retrieve early U.S. patents from the USPTO database by date of issue and a search (isd/18620121) retrieves some 50 patents issued on Jan. 21, 1862. Flipping through the first ten or so hits, I was able to quickly locate patent no. 34,230, an "improved box for matches" patented by Henry Howson of Philadelphia and assigned to W. F. Warburton. However, the drawings seemed to me to be very different to the finished article. Might there be a later patent? I zipped over to Google Patents and searched "Henry Howson" and found patent no. 39,994 issued on Sept. 15, 1863. The drawings and description in this patent more closely resemble the matchbox above. Howson also cites his 1862 patent. This is a good example of how to trace 19th century patents and why it's never safe to assume that the date embossed on an article of manufacture corresponds to the final patent. It's always wise to check for later improvements.

U.S. Patent Counts - Jan-Mar 2007

The USPTO issued 47,332 patents in Q1 of 2007, a 5.9% increase over the same period a year ago but only a tiny increase over the previous quarter. Published applications (PGPubs) were also up 5.9% over a year ago, reaching 74,277 documents. This was the third highest quarterly total since 2001 but down slightly from Q4 of 2006.

Quarterly Patent and PGPub Counts

Q0 | Patents| PGPubs | Total
Q1 | 47,332 | 74,277 | 121,609
Q2 |
Q3 |
Q4 |

Patents Key to Reducing Poverty?

Two recent studies suggest that patents have a key role to play in raising state per capita incomes and overcoming persistent poverty. A working paper published almost a year ago by two staffers of the Federal Bank of Cleveland and professor Scott Shane of Case Western University, suggests that patents and high school/university graduation rates are the most important determinants of per state capita income. A more recent study by researchers at the Univ. of Kentucky's Center for Business and Economic Research reaffirmed the Case Western's findings. (Reported in the SSTI Weekly Digest.)

World's Most Prolific Inventor: Who is Shunpei Yamazaki?

Last night's Final Jeopardy! answer was "Shunpei Yamazaki", an inventor who holds more than 3,200 patents, a world record.

According to the USPTO web site, Yamazaki has 1,688 issued U.S. patents and 1,261 published applications. A search in Patent Lens, a non-profit patent database service, retrieved 3,226 U.S., European and international patent documents credited to Yamazaki. The EPO's esp@cenet system, which contains more than 60 million patent documents from 70+ countries, records 7,285 patents and published applications for Yamazaki. In contrast, Thomas Edison, America's most prolific inventor, rec'd some 1,100 U.S. patents during his lifetime.

Withdrawn Patents on FreePatentsOnline

Withdrawn patent data is now searchable on FreePatentsOnline. Withdrawn patents may be retrieved by searching the term "withdrawn" in the title field. This search retrieves approximately 22,600 withdrawn patents, the oldest being No. 4,246,372, withdrawn in 1981.

Allowed U.S. patent applications may be withdrawn prior to issue at the request of the applicant or USPTO provided certain conditions are met. Common reasons for withdrawal requests include the discovery of new prior art that could invalidate one or more claims in the allowed application, an error or illegality in the application, the applicant makes a request for continued examination (RCE) of an application or an interference. See Section 1308 of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure for details.

Patent Lens Adds Predicted Expiry Date for US Patents

Patent Lens, a public patent database containing more than 6 million US, EP and WO patent documents, now allows searchers to limit searches by the predicted expiry date for granted US patents. The date is displayed in the body of the record.

Searchers should note that the predicted expiry date is calculated and does not take into account terminal disclaimers, term extensions or adjustments.

Patent Lens is operated as a "public good global resource for increasing patent transparency" by Cambia, an independent, non-profit scientific research institute located in Canberra Australia.

Worth Repeating: PatentScope Graphics

This week the WIPO formally announced the newest feature in its PatentScope database: the ability to display search results in graphic format. The tool has been available in beta version for several months.

The tool converts search results into four graphic charts: 1) year of publication, 2) country of publication, 3) applicant name (first named) and 4) IPC subclass. This is the first public patent database that (to the best of my knowledge) has a search results graphical display capability.

DC Inventors Aim to be the Next Thomas Edison

Today's (March 4) Washington Post reports on the people who turned out for a casting call for the PBS show "Everyday Edisons". The first show in the series will air on April 28. Inventors mentioned include Frampton Ellis III (naturally contoured shoe), Daniel Davala (butter knife) and Matt Fleming (tabletop game). This month one hundred years ago, Thomas Edison received a patent on an electrical welding machine (847,746).

Maine State Tartan in Dispute

This story isn't patent related but it's interesting to me, since I'm from Maine..

Tartan centre of copyright lawsuit - L.L. Bean and copyright owner in fight over Maine State Tartan. The tartan was designed by a Canadian in 1964 and the copyright acquired by a private company in 1988.

Apparently, there are two Maine tartans... The Maine state legislature has proposed a Maine Dirigo Tartan that would be an alternative to the privately owned Maine State Tartan.

Canadian and U.S. Patent Maps

Several years ago I created a map of the U.S. showing the ratio of issued patents to population. I've recently updated it with 2006 statistics and created a second map for Canada. They're simple maps based on the most recent data from the USPTO and Census Bureau, Canadian Intellectual Property Office and Statistics Canada.

U.S. Patent Map (2006)

The average for the U.S. is 32 patents per 100,000 population. The states with the highest rates are concentrated, as would be expected, in New England, the Pacific Northwest and West Coast. The states with the lowest rates are located in the Deep South, Appalachia, the northern prairies, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

Canadian Patent Map (2005)

Canada's national average is only 4.52 patents per 100,000 population. It must be noted, however, that Canadian inventors file 3 times as many patent applications in the U.S. as they do at home. The lowest rates occur in the maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Isle and Newfoundland Labrador. Ontario and Quebec, where most of Canada's manufacturing and high tech companies are located, score 4.72 and 4.47, respectively. The Yukon rate of 12.86 is due to its very small population.

New USPTO Class Orders

Two new classification orders are available on the USPTO web site. Order 1858, published last month, covers Class 348 - Television. Order 1859, published in February, affects Class 192 - Clutches and Power-Stop Control.

Interestingly, Order 1859 has a USPC-ECLA concordance section in addition to the standard USPC-IPC concordance. Could this be a sign that the USPTO is planning to use ECLA codes or is it part of the E-subclass Project started in 2002?

PatentMonkey Review

If a monkey typed at random on a keyboard, how long would it take it to write the complete patents of Thomas Edison? The infinite monkey theorem inspired the name of PatentMonkey, the latest entrepreneurial start-up in an increasingly crowded field of patent searching and downloading services. It is owned by Invequity, a patent licensing company based in Reston, Virginia. The CEO and co-founder of PatentMonkey is Paul Ratcliffe, a registered patent attorney and former patent examiner.

PatentMonkey, like similar services, is supported in part by advertising and user fees. Users may search and view patents at no charge but must pay in order to download PDF copies of patent documents. Document download credits can be purchased in bundles of 20, 50 and 100; the price per download ranges from $.50 to $1.25. Users may also register for monthly or annual memberships that come with download credits, document management functions and fewer advertisments. Basic monthly membership has 50 downloads while basic annual membership offers 600 downloads. All membership packages offer fewer advertisements and the ability to create up to 100 folders for managing patent documents.

PatentMonkey includes only U.S. utility and reissue patents from August 1975 to the present, or about 3,200,000 utility patents and 10,800 reissue patents. According to the FAQ, published applications and design patents will be added in the near future. However, no mention is made of plant patents, defensive publications and statutory invention registrations. The absence of these miscellaneous patent documents, which number fewer than 25,000, might be excusable, but the lack of published applications (A docs) is a serious weakness. The USPTO has published 1.3 million patent applications since March 2001. About 15 percent of all U.S. patent documents are A docs. It appears that PatentMonkey is updated weekly.

PatentMonkey is a full text database with 29 searchable fields including patent number, date, title, abstract, claims, specification, current U.S. classification, international classification, inventor, assignee, etc. In comparison, the USPTO patent full-text and image database has 31 searchable fields. Test searches retrieved the same or very similar results compared to the USPTO database, discounting searches that retrieved design patents. (See the Patent Database Comparison Slides.)

All in all, PatentMonkey's search functions and search results display are very similar to other services.
There are five search modes: Quick, Quick+, Advanced, Patent Number and Bulk Patent Number. Quick mode searches terms in 1, 2 or 3 fields; Quick+ searches terms in up to 10 fields; advanced search is not yet available. Inventor and assignee searches use automatic left and right truncation. For example, a search on inventor lastname "Adler" also retrieves "Stadler" and "Sadler". Curiously, left and right truncation and wildcards are not available for keyword searches. Phrase searching is possible using quotation marks.

Another weakness of the system is the lack of integrated U.S. patent classification (USPC) search tools. Users who want to do a classification-based search must first obtain their USPC classes and subclasses from another source, such the USPTO classification tools website. In comparison, the USPTO patent database and Manual of Classification, including schedules, definitions and index, have been integrated since at least 2000.

Figure 1. PatentMonkey Record with Patent Status Display.

PatentMonkey's most useful feature is its patent status indicator. (See Figure 1.) Each retrieved patent record displays a status symbol indicating whether the patent is active, abandoned, abanoned less than 24 months (and eligible for reactivation), expired or status to be determined. The status is computed by a proprietary algorithm and does not take into account patent term extensions or adjustments. Users should proceed with caution when evaluating status information.

With so many other free U.S. patent downloading services, such as Patent Lens, Pat2PDF and esp@cenet, it will be a challenge for PatentMonkey to find customers willing to pay $.50-$1.25 per patent. Its lack of design patents and published applications, limited truncation capabilities and classification search options are serious weaknesses. PatentMonkey's patent status data is a useful feature not found in other databases, but it should be used in conjunction with the USPTO's Public PAIR system.

Greatest Canadian Invention: Insulin

Last week the CBC aired the results of its "Greatest Canadian Invention" poll. The top three picks were:

1. Insulin (1921) - Banting and Best
2. Light bulb (1874) - Woodward and Evans
3. Telephone (1876) - Bell

Americans might be surprised to see the light bulb and telephone, two quintessentially "American" inventions, topping a list of Canadian innovations. But both have connections to Canada.

Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, was born in Scotland and moved to Canada in 1870 at the age of 23. In 1872 he moved to Boston to take a teaching job and pursue his interest in telephony. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1882 but spent most of his later life at his estate in Nova Scotia. He died and was buried there in 1922. In 1874 Thomas Edison bought the patent rights for a carbon filament light bulb from two Canadians, Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans, for $5000. His famous 1879 patent was an improvement on their design. The number 1 invention, insulin, was first isolated and produced in 1921 by Univ. of Toronto researchers Charles Best and Frederick Banting.

See http://www.cbc.ca/inventions/ for details about all 50 inventions in the poll, a teacher's resource guide and numerous facts about inventing and patenting.

Some other quick facts about Canadian patents:

• The first "Canadian" patent was granted in 1791 by the Legislature of Lower Canada to American inventor Samuel Hopkins.
• Canada's first federal patent statute was enacted in 1869. Canada's first federal patent was issued on August 18, 1869.
• Canadian inventors file more patent applications abroad (primarily in the U.S.) than at home. In 2005, Canadian inventors filed 5,102 patent applications in Canada and 8,309 applications in the U.S. They received 1,461 Canadian patents and 3,368 U.S. patents.

New Patent Caselaw Site

The guys over at phosita(R), an IP law blog, have just announced the release of fedcirc.us. According to their Jan. 2 posting, FedCirc is...

..."a website that allows patent professionals and other patent stakeholders to access, digest and manage patent caselaw information. The site is built on a foundation of timely, accurate, and considered reviews of patent decisions from the Supreme Court of the United States and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit."

Why did they do it?

"Three factors are coming together - now - to create an environment that begs for revolution: chaos in the law, an intense and sudden focus on patent law by non-patent professionals, and a technology tipping point that's been exposed by the runaway success of patent blogs over the last several years."

http://www.okpatents.com/phosita/archives/2007/01/a_little_something_new_fedcircus.html

U.S. Patent and PGPub Q4 Report and 2006 Review

2006 was a record-breaking year for patents and pre-grant publications. In the final quarter of 2006 the USPTO published 76,032 applications, an increase of 1.49 percent over the previous quarter and a new record high. The total for the calendar year was 294,674, an increase of just 1.75 percent over 2005 but the highest annual total since the USPTO began publishing pending applications in 2001. Approximately 1.3 million applications have been published to date. Despite a slow start, 2006 was also a banner year for patents. The total for the year was 196,613, a whopping increase of 24.58 percent over 2005. The previous highest total (187,147) was set in 2003. The increase was due to very high outputs in Q2 and Q3. There was some slippage in Q4 with the USPTO issuing 46,912 patents, a decrease of 6.64 percent from the previous quarter. With the pending application backfile now over 1 million, the USPTO is expanding its workforce in order to deal with the increasing workload. According to the USPTO's FY2006 annual report, the agency hired approximately 1,218 new patent examiners this year, bringing the total to 4,779. Current plans call for the USPTO to hire 1,200 examiners per year through 2011. 2006

Quarterly Patent and PGPub Counts*

Patents PGPubs Totals
Q1 44,699 70,147 114,846
Q2 54,749 73,593 128,342
Q3 50,253 74,902 125,155
Q4 46,912 76,032 122,944
196,613 294,674 491,287

*Based on weekly data from the USPTO's PatFT and AppFT databases. Weekly totals may change after the fact due to withdrawn patents and published applications.

Average Weekly Totals for 2006

Patents 3,811
PGPubs 5,674

Number Ranges for 2006

Patents 6,981,282 - 7,155,745
Reissues RE38,928 - RE39,451
PGPubs 2006/0000001 - 2006/0294,631
Designs D513,356 - D534,0330
Plants PP16,176 - PP17,325
SIRs H2,137 - H2,176

Predictions for 2007

Series Code 12
Given the huge number of new applications in 2005 (410,000) and 2006 (443,000), it is likely that the USPTO will introduce series code 12 sometime in 2007. Series codes are two-digit numbers prefixed to application serial numbers. The USPTO assigns application serial numbers from 1-999,999. Series code 11 was introduced in December 2004.

WIPO PCT Glossary and History of PCT Regulations

The WIPO has released two new reference works for PCT users:

The PCT Glossary contains definitions for dozens of terms commonly used in PCT rules and documentation. Terms are linked to appropriate PCT articles, rules, administrative instructions and forms.

The History of PCT Regulations is a 300 page in-depth history of PCT rules from June 19, 1970-October 12, 2006. The first edition was published in 1995.

USPTO Receives 443,652 Patent Applications in 2006

Here are some interesting facts from the FY 2006 USPTO annual report:

# of new applications: 443,652 (up from 409,532 in FY05)
# of pending applications: 1,077,042 (up from 885,002 in FY05)
# of provisional applications: 121,307 (up from 111,753 in FY05)
# of issued patents: 183,187 (up from 165,483 in FY05)
Average pendency: 31.1 months (up from 29.1 in FY05)

Although the USPTO is hiring patent examiners like crazy (1,218 in 2006) , it can't possibly train them fast enough to keep up with new filings *and* maintain quality *and* shorten review times. The number of published applications is going to continue to surpass issued patents 1.5-2.0 to 1. There will probably be more than 295,000 published applications in calendar year 2006 and perhaps 325,000 in 2007.

The bottom line: more outsourcing and fast-track examination programs.

Patent Information News 3/2006

The October 2006 issue of Patent Information News is now available.

This issue contains articles on:

• Worldwide database moves to XML
• EPO patent information conference, Nov. 6-8
• esp@cenet user statistics
• Open Patent Services: new features
• Legal status from New Zealand
• Data from Iceland
• Patent mapping--a aid to corporate decision-making?

WIPO Student Workbook to Inventions and Patents - Now in French and Spanish

The educational workbook Inventions and Patents is now available in English, Spanish and French. The workbook is geared toward students 8-13 years old. The workbook is the first in the WIPO student learning series, Learn from the Past, Create the Future.

WIPO Report on Worldwide Patent Activity

The World Intellectual Property Organisation has published its annual report on Statistics of Worldwide Patent Activity. (Data current to 2004.)

According to the report, the number of patent applications file in 2004 rose to 1,559,000. More than 600,000 patents were granted worldwide in 2004. Other sections of the report cover filings by residents and non-residents, indicators of patent activity (filings per million population, per GDP, etc.), issued patents and patents in force.

Inventor Cuts Against the Grain

Independent inventors often underestimate the hurdles they must overcome in order to get their invention to market. Most don't even consider the government regulations and industry standards that could derail their attempts.

Take the case of Stephen Gass reported in the Oct. 10 Washington Post. Mr. Gass invented a device that he claims prevents power saws from inflicting severe injuries by stopping a rotating blade in fractions of a second. Sounds like a no brainer, right? But the power tool industry balked at licensing his invention. It even failed to win the endorsement of independent Underwriters Labs. Most inventors might give up in the face of such resistance, but Mr. Gass is no ordinary inventor... he's also a patent attorney.

A great case study to share with both experienced and first-time inventors.

U.S. Patent Counts, Jan. 1-Sept. 30, 2006

The USPTO issued a record-breaking 54,749 patents from April-June and an impressive 50,253 patents in the Q3 from July-September, the first and second highest totals since early 2002. The increase is surprising given the sharp drop in patents in late 2005--only 33,637 patents were issued in Q4--and the agency's ongoing efforts to hire and train hundreds of new examiners, a process that is bound to negatively impact productivity. The USPTO hired 940 new examiners last year and will hire 1,000 more per year through 2012. If the pace continues in Q4, the USPTO could be on track to issue more than 200,000 patents in 2006, a 26 percent increase over 2005. Since 2001, the number of patents issued per year has declined in three out of four years. More than 400,000 new applications were filed in fiscal year 2005.

Table 1. Issued Patents, 2001-2006

2001 184,172 -
2002 177,485 -3.63%
2003 187,147 5.44%
2004 181,443 -3.05%
2005 157,819 -13.02%
YTD 149,701

Published applications in 3Q totaled 74,902, breaking the previous record of 74,255 set in Q4 of 2004. However, the rate of growth has slowed considerably this year; it is likely that the number of published applications will fall between 290,000 and 293,000 in 2006, an increase of 0.4-1.4% over 2005.

Table 2. Published Applications, 2001-2006

2001 56,404 -
2002 199,006 252.82%
2003 237,089 19.14%
2004 268,399 13.21%
2005 289,614 7.90%
YTD 218,642

End of the USPTO's Document Disclosure Program?

Earlier this year the USPTO requested comments from the public on the proposed elimination of the Document Disclosure Program (DDP). The USPTO established the DDP in 1969 as a simple, low-cost way for inventors to document the date of conception of an invention as an alternative to the discredited practice of using a self-addressed envelope. (U.S. courts have never recognized a postmark as sufficient evidence of conception.)

This is the USPTO's second attempt to end the DDP. The previous attempt in 1998, although it received a number of favorable responses, was abandoned due to the lack of input from the independent inventor community. Opinions vary on the merits of the DDP. Some claim that it is open to abuse by unscrupulous Invention Promotion Companies (IPCs) and misuse by novice inventors. Others argue that is a safe and affordable way for first-time inventors to get their "feet wet" in the world of patents.

The most recent proposal, which was published in April in the Federal Register and in May in the Official Gazette of the USPTO, generated about two dozen comments from individuals and organizations. The comments were generally split 50/50 in favor of eliminating the DDP; most were anecdotal and many acknowledged the lack of hard evidence to justify either course of action. (The lack of responses raises another question: where are all the independent inventors anyway? Could it be that young inventors aren't interested in the DDP? See the Sept. 9, 1999 issue of the New York Times for an article titled "Internet Connects Inventors to Information (and One Another).")

One of the most interesting responses was submitted by the United Inventors Association (UIA), an educational not-for-profit organization based in Rochester, New York whose mission is "to provide leadership, support and services to inventor support groups." The UIA letter, written by president Don Kelly, suggested that the USPTO had already decided to end the DDP and offered a counter-proposal: the "UIA is fully prepared to take on the management of the DDP." Will the USPTO accept the UIA's proposal and allow a private organization to manage the DDP, a program whose real value may be as a public relations tool?

Canadian Libraries Sparked an Inventor's Home Run

OCLC Canada has a new media campaign that links economic growth to libraries. The campaign features testimonials from individuals who have been helped by a librarian. One patent-related story comes from Sam Holman, owner of the Ottawa-based Original Maple Bat Company. According to the story, Mr. Holman "researched 225 related patents at multiple libraries in Ottawa, and realized that maple bats would be stronger and more durable than traditional ash."

Mr. Holman's patents include: CA2344077, US6334823, US6050910; he has several more pending applications in Japan and Austrialia. Aspiring inventors may search Canadian patents and published applications from 1869 to the present at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office's patent database and the European Patent Office's esp@cenet database.

Patent Bending Week 5

Tom Stewart and Russel Zeid, hosts of Patent Bending on Discovery Channel Canada, and Rick Minke, their master building/industrial designer, take a look at 19th century personal safety technology in this week's episode. The subject is a U.S. patent from 1879 called "Improvement in Fire Escapes" invented by Benjamin B. Oppenheimer. (US 221,855) The invention combines a head-mounted parachute and thick rubber soled shoes that is supposed to allow a human to safely escape a burning building. (This patent frequently appears on lists of wacky patents.)

With the aid of a crash test dummy named "Sandy", the team quickly discovers that the original design is more hazardous than helpful. (Damn those laws of physics!) Quickly they regroup and scale-down the device to accomodate pets such as cats and gerbils. Their improved design works, much to the relief of pet owners everywhere. (No animals were harmed in the making of this episode.)

Patent Bending and the Greatest Canadian Inventor

Last month I reported that Discovery Channel Canada was launching a new series called Patent Bending: Mad Ideas - Modern Science. The hosts of the show, inventor Tom Stewart and science guy Russell Zeid, find wacky patents and attempt to build working models based on the designs.

The first three episodes were mixed. The floating campsite was more camp than science. I kept hoping in vain that a bear would hijack the sorry rig. the bicycle lawnmower and 12-gauge golf club were very entertaining.

Unfortunately, there is virtually no discussion of the actual patents during the show. No one explains what a patent is, how the guys found the featured patents or shows the patent drawing. The web site also provides scant information on the original patents. For the bicycle lawnmower all it reveals is that the inspirational patent issued in 1984. (U.S. 4,455,816)

Perhaps we can hope for more from the CBC's "Greatest Canadian Invention" competition. The CBC is inviting viewers to vote for the best Canadian invention of all time. The fifty innovations include insulin, the Blackberry and lacrosse. The winner will be announced during a special show hosted by Bob McDonald on January 3, 2007.

USPTO Bans Wikipedia

According to the Sept. 4 issue of Business Week, the USPTO has recently banned Wikipedia as an acceptable source of information for determining the patentability of inventions. Patent examiners and applicants have been citing Wikipedia articles in patents since at least November 2003... and not very many of them at that. A quick search of the USPTO's patent database reveals that from January 2004 to the present only 74 patents cite Wikipedia articles. Compare that to 33,802 references to IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) publications. Other science and engineering publishers heavily favored by patent examiners and applicants include:

Association of Computing Machinery = 6,010
Elsevier = 4,493
Springer Verlag = 2,319
McGraw-Hill = 2,728
Chemical Abstracts Service = 2,274
Oxford Univ Press = 781
Society of Automotive Engineers = 968
American Society of Mechanical Engineers = 850
Society of Petroleum Engineers =706
Cambridge Univ Press = 639
Wiley Interscience = 545
MIT Press = 403
ASTM = 498
American Institute of Chemical Engineers = 207

Wikipedia did beat its arch rival Encyclopedia Britannica, which was cited in only 47 patents in the same time period.

Patent examiners and patent attorneys are highly trained (many have Masters or PhDs) and experienced professionals. The above stats show that most do know the difference between an authoritative source and a marginal or unreliable one. It may be that Wikipedia is the most appropriate source for some types of information. It's another form of “gray” literature that is well-suited to emerging or interdisciplinary fields that don’t have established vocabularies or literature. Besides, critics of the USPTO have long complained that patent examiners allow too many patents, especially in the fields of computer technology and business methods, that should have been refused on the basis of prior art found outside the realm of traditional publishing, such as open source software archives.

The USPTO’s own rules state that “[a]n electronic publication, including an on-line database or Internet publication,” may be valid reference if it is accessible to the public. Wikipedia certainly fits both criteria. What about CNET, Gizmodo, Slashdot and other popular tech sites where people discuss gadgets, share hacks and speculate on the future of technology?

Discovery Channel Canada Investigates Odd Patents

Have you ever looked at a wacky patent and wondered if it really could work?

Discovery Channel Canada aims to find out in a new series premiering in August called "Patent Bending: Mad Ideas and Modern Science." The 11-episode series looks at patents from the past 100 years to find and build the "greatest, strangest or most fantastically odd ideas that never got off the page."

The inventions include:

Bicycle Lawnmower - Tues, Aug. 22 at 8:30 p.m.
Floating Tent - Tues., Aug. 29 at 8:30 p.m.
12-Gauge Golf Club - Tues., Sept. 5 at 8:30 p.m.
Helmet Bar - Tues., Sept. 12 at 8:30 p.m.
Chute ‘N Shoes - Tues., Sept. 19 at 8:30 p.m.
Human Carwash - Tues., Sept. 26 at 8:30 p.m.
The Mancatcher - Tues., Oct. 3 at 8:30 p.m.
Motorized Picnic Table - Tues., Oct. 10 at 8:30 p.m.
The Baby Show - Tues., Oct. 17 at 8:30 p.m.
The Better Mousetrap - Tues., Oct. 24 at 8:30 p.m.
Uphill Skis - Tues., Oct. 31 at 8:30 p.m.

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.

Patent Searching, Old School

Photo: Patent searching circa 1960. Searchers (junior patent attorneys most likely) flip through stacks of paper patents in metal troughs located in the Patent Search Room.

The IP Mall, an online resource center for intellectual property information provided by the Pierce Law Center in Concord, NH, has digitized a fascinating collection of Patent Office Research and Development Reports from the 1950s and 1960s. The reports describe the Patent Office's early attempts at "mechanizing" or automating patent searching using coding schemes and early "punched card" computers.

Photo source: How to Obtain Information from United States Patents, Washington, DC: U.S. Patent Office, 1964.

New USPC Classification Order: Class 439 - Electrical Connectors

The USPTO has published Classification Order 1,855, dated May 2, 2006. The order affects subclasses in Class 439, Electrical Connectors; it abolishes subclasses 620-622 and establishes 620.01-620.34.

PTO Document Disclosure Program

The latest issue of ipFrontline has an interesting article called "The PTO's Document Disclosure Program: Boon or Boondoggle," by former patent examiner Thomas G. Field.

The USPTO is currently seeking public comment on a proposal to eliminate the program. See the Federal Register April 6, 2006, vol. 71, p. 17399. This is the third time since 1998 that the agency has proposed eliminating the 27-year old program.

USPTO's Disclosure Document Program brochure.

WIPO Patent Search Results Available by RSS

According to a recent WIPO press release, search results in PatentScope, WIPO's database of PCT international patent applications, can now be retrieved using RSS, aka "Really Simple Syndication".

PatentScope contains approximately 1.1 million published PCT applications from 1978 to the present and is updated every Thursday when new applications are published.

PatentScope RSS searches will automatically retrieve the latest published applications and feed them into your RSS reader, web page or database. This service will make it much easier to monitor international patent applications without the hassle of conducting repetitive searches every week.

Canadian Patents, 1869-1894

Made in Canada: Patents of Invention and the Story of Canadian Innovation

The Library and Archives of Canada and Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) have launched a new online exhibition and database of patents granted to Canadian citizens and residents from 1869-1894. Some patents are jointly held by Canadians and U.S. residents. Foreign inventors not residing in Canada were permitted to apply for patents in the early 1870s.

The database contains ~14,000 patents that are indexed by patent number, patent holder name, filing year, city, province/state and title keyword. Scanned images of full-text documents are also included. The Canadian Patent Office issued approximately 44,000 patents during the 25 years covered by the database. Patents from 1895-1919 will be added in the future.

MIT-Lemelson Prizes Announced

The MIT-Lemelson Program has awarded its annual $500K prize to James L. Fergason, an early innovator in the field of liquid crystal displays, and a $100K lifetime achievement award to Dr. Sidney Pestka for his "seminal work on interferons."

Mr. Fergason has more than 100 U.S. patents. Dr. Pestka's most recent patents include:

6,800,747 Nucleic acids encoding phosphorylated fusion proteins
6,747,131 Phosphorylated fusion proteins
6,610,830 Microbial production of mature human leukocyte interferons
6,514,753 Expression vectors for producing modified proteins
6,482,613 Microbial production of mature human leukocyte interferons
6,300,474 Modified interferons
6,299,870 Mutant human interferons
6,287,853 Accessory factory function for interferon gamma and its receptor
6,225,455 Constructs for producing phosphorylated fusion proteins
6,150,503 Phosphorylated fusion proteins
6,001,589 Method of identifying proteins modified by disease states related thereto

Liquid Crystal Display Pioneer Honored
Washington Post, May 3, 2006

MIT-Lemelson Press Release

U.S. Patent Counts, Jan. 1-Apr. 30, 2006

U.S. patent grants in March and April hovered around 4,000 patents per week except for a slight dip the week of March 12. A record-breaking (at least in recent years) 4,365 patents issued on April 25, surpassing published applications by 13. This was the first week in many, many months when the number of issued patents exceeded the number of published applications.

New USPC Class Order: Class 174

The USPTO has published Classification Order 1,852, dated April 4, 2006. The order affects subclasses in Class 174 - Electricity: Conductors and Insulators.