2007 Top U.S. Patent Assignees from ISIClaims

Last week IFIClaims, a patent information company owned by Walters Kluwer Health , released its annual list of top U.S. patent assignees for 2007. According to the report, the USPTO issued 157,284 utility patents last year, a decline of about 10 percent from 2006. The top ten assignees (out of 35 listed) are:

1. IBM ..... 3,148
2. Samsung ..... 2,725
3. Canon ..... 1,987
4. Matsushita Elec. Ind. Co. ..... 1,941
5. Intel ..... 1,865
6. Microsoft ..... 1,637
7. Toshiba ..... 1,549
8. Sony ..... 1,481
9. Micron ..... 1,476
10. Hewlett-Packard ..... 1,470

IPI-ConfEx 2008 - International Patent Information Conference

The final program for IPI-ConfEx 2008, an international patent information conference, is now available online. IPI-ConfEx is scheduled for March 2-5 in Seville, Spain and will feature a of presentations from EPO and WIPO staff, patent information vendors and corporate patent searchers. The conference is organized by a number of European patent information associations.

Fictional Brands

Last Sunday's Toronto Star had an interesting story about fictional brands from film and literature that have inspired real-life products. Some examples include HOLIDAY INN hotels, said to have been inspired by the 1942 Bing Crosby movie of the same name, and BRAWNDO energy drink, a fake brand from Mike Judge's 2006 film Idiocracy. There's even a term describing this phenomena: "defictionalization".

Infringement = Triple Word Score

An AP story reports that Hasbro and Mattel, makers of Scrabble(R), are unhappy with an unauthorized online version of the game called Scrabulous. The companies, which share worldwide rights to the boardgame, have sent cease-and-desist letters to the two brothers from India who created the online version which is very popular on Facebook.

According to the official Scrabble(R) website, the first version of the game, called Lexico, was invented in 1931 by an unemployed architect named Alfred Mosher Butts. Unfortunately, his repeated attempts in the 1930s to secure a patent on the game and license it to Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley all ended in failure. In the mid-1940s, James and Helen Brunot of Newtown, Conn., who had acquired one of Butts' homemade sets, entered into a partnership with Butts to market a redesigned, simpler version of the game. The trademark Scrabble was registered on December 16, 1948. (Reg. 524,505) The Brunots patented an improvement to the game in 1956. (US2,752,158)

Hasbro owns the Scrabble trademarks and copyrights in North America; Mattel in the rest of the world.

Public PAIR Verification System

The USPTO has implemented a new verification system for users accessing Public PAIR (Patent Application Information Retrieval). Users must now enter a two-word verification code in order to access the system. The system is meant to block bots and spiders. Launched in mid-2003, Public PAIR contains bibliographic data, legal status and prosecution history information and facsimilie images of file wrapper documents for published applications and issued patents.

Everyday Edisons - Season 3

Everyday Edisons, a show about inventing that debuted on PBS last year, has announced its casting calls for season 3. The first casting call will be in Atlanta on Jan. 12. Other cities in the schedule include San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago and Boston. This is a great show for students and inventors who want to learn more about bringing products to market.

New Classification Orders, #1867-1874

The USPTO has issued eight new classifications orders since Oct. 1, 2007, an unusually large number for a three-month period. Classes affected include:

711 - Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory
714 - Error detection/correction and fault detection/recovery
715 - Data processing: presentation processing of document, operator interface processing, and screen saver display processing
506 - Combinatorial chemistry technology: method, library, apparatus
435 - Chemistry: molecular biology and microbiology
374 - Thermal measuring and testing
365 - Static information storage and retrieval
360 - Dynamic magnetic information storage or retrieval
318 - Electricity: motive power systems

Chinese Patent Databases, EPC 2000, etc.

The December issue of Patent Information News has several interesting and useful articles on free patent databases from China; the impact of the European Patent Convention (EPC 2000) on patent information searchers; and patent information from Asia.

USPTO Discontinues Another Paper Publication

According to a notice published in the Federal Register, the USPTO is discontinuing the paper version of its Patent and Trademark Office Notices effective December 25, 2007. The Notices, which are also published in the weekly Official Gazette, include announcements on USPTO policies, fees, mailing addresses and patent attorney registration. Other information related to patents includes expired patents, certificates of correction, withdrawn patents, maintenance fee notices, new reexamination proceedings and reissue applications. Notices will continue to appear in the electronic Official Gazette and the USPTO's online archive, which contains notices from 1995 to the present.

In my opinion, this is a positive, if overdue change... Other patent offices long ago discontinued their print gazettes and notices. But it's also a missed opportunity because the electronic version of the Notices is simply a facsimile of the print version. Why not integrate the post-allowance data published in the Notices (e.g. corrections, disclaimers, withdrawn numbers, expired patents) with other existing tools such as the PatFT database? It would be much more convenient and time saving to have access to this data in one place.

Wikipedia References in Issued Patents

Back in September 2006 the USPTO banned patent examiners from using Wikipedia as a source of prior art information, citing its unreliability and lack of authority. Well, this apparently hasn't stopped examiners or inventors from citing the popular online encyclopedia in patents. The number of Wikipedia articles cited in patents in 2007 jumped to 293, almost three times the number cited in 2006.

Of course, this pales in comparison to other sources of scientific and technical information. Patents that cited IEEE publications totaled 14,440 in 2007. There were also 3,268 citations to ACM publications and 972 to Chemical Abstracts. Heavily cited science and engineering publishers included Elsevier (2,106), McGraw-Hill (1,089), Springer (1,538) and Wiley (2,963). Online sources are increasing in popularity: websites were cited in 10,870 patents issued in 2007.

U.S. Patent and PGPub Year-End Review

2007 was a bit of a mixed bag for U.S. patents and published applications. In Q4 the USPTO published 73,450 applications, the lowest number in more than a year and a 3 percent drop from the same quarter in 2006. However, the total number of PGPubs for the calendar year was 300,198, a 1.87 percent increase over 2006. This is the first year that PGPubs have exceeded the 300,000 mark. Approximately 1.6 million applications have been published since 2001. The USPTO issued 45,401 patents in Q4, a 3 percent decline from the same period in 2006. The total number of patents issued in 2007 dropped to 183,128, which is 13,485 or 6.86 percent fewer than 2006. Weekly issues and PGpubs were relatively stable with few peaks or canyons. (See Table 2.) According the the USPTO's FY2007 annual report released in November, inventors set another record for new filings, submitting 467,243 applications, a 4.85 percent increase over 2006. In order to deal with this continuing growth the USPTO hired another 1,215 examiners in FY2007, bringing the total patent examining corps to 5,477. Despite the additional staff the backlog of pending patent applications grew to 1,112,517, a 10.82 percent increase over FY2006.

Table 1. Quarterly Patent and PGPub Counts*

Quarter ..... Patents ..... PGPubs ..... Totals
Q1 ..... 47,332 ..... 74,277 ..... 121,609
Q2 ..... 45,828 ..... 76,640 ..... 122,468
Q3 ..... 44,567 ..... 75,831 ..... 120,398
Q4 ..... 45,401 ..... 73,450 ..... 118,851

2007 ..... 183,128 ..... 300,198 ..... 483,326

*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.

Table 2. Weekly Averages and Medians for 2007

Patents ..... 3,515 ..... 3,539
PGPubs ..... 5,762 ..... 5,659

Table 3. Number Ranges for 2007

Patents ..... 7,155,746 - 7,313,828
Reissues ..... RE39,452 - RE39,963
PGPubs ..... 2007/0000001 - 2007/0300346
Designs ..... D534,332 - D558,425
Plants ..... PP17,326 - PP18,372
SIRs ..... H2,177 - H2,207

Table 4. Withdrawn Patent and PGPub Numbers in 2007

Patents ..... 831
PGPubs ..... 143

Predictions for 2008

Last year I predicted that the USPTO would adopt series code 12 for utility and plant patent applications before the end of 2007. We won't know for sure for a few months, but the USPTO is on track to run out of serial numbers for series 11 before the end of the year. Recently published applications filed in September have serial numbers in the 850,000-855,000 range. Applications are published 18 months from the earliest priority filing date (provisional or foreign), which means that many new applications are published 6 months (or less) after filing. So it looks like series 12 will be appearing on or about Jan. 1. Series code 11 was adopted on Dec. 1, 2004.

Canadians Too Lazy to Invent?

A recent op-ed in the Globe and Mail (Dec. 27) uses patent statistics to make the case that Canada, in general, and the province of Alberta, specifically, needs to focus more on math, science and the creative arts in schools in order to ensure future prosperity. The writer argues that since Canada is about one-tenth the size of the U.S., Canadian inventors should have been granted 240,000 U.S. patents over the last twenty years. Instead, they have received only 77,594.

Although I agree that Canada needs to do more to cultivate innovation rather than rely on natural resources for economic growth, I'm generally skeptical about such comparisons. In fact, I believe that patent statistics show that Canadians are among the most inventive, creative people in the world.

Let's take a broader look at patenting trends among the G8 countries over the last few years. With just over 33 million people, Canada is the smallest country in the G8, yet since 2000 Canadian inventors have been granted nearly as many U.S. patents as their counterparts in France and Great Britain, which have populations almost twice as large. In terms of the per capita number of patents issued, Canada, with about 1000 people per patent, ranks second after Japan (488:1) and Germany (857:1) and well ahead of France (1702:1), Italy (3458:1) and Russia (60991:1).

A much more interesting statistic, in my opinion, is the fact that Canadian residents apply for and receive far fewer patents in Canada than the U.S. In 2006, Canadian inventors filed 10,243 U.S. patent applications and were granted 3,743 patents, but filed only 5,348 Canadian patent applications and received 1,495 patents. Obviously, this might be explained by the fact that Canadian inventors believe they can get more bang for their buck in the U.S., where the consumer and venture capital markets are much larger.

Table 1. G8 Patenting Trends, 2000-2007*

Country / Pop. / U.S. Patents

Canada / 33,390,141 / 34,702
France / 60,876,136 / 35,765
Germany / 82,400,996 / 96,102
Italy / 58,147,733 / 16,814
Japan / 127,433,494 / 289,628
Russia / 141,377,752 / 2,318
United Kingdom / 60,776,238 / 38,579
United States / 300,000,000 / 668,807

*Based on data from USPTO patent databases and annual reports.

E-Documents as Prior Art

Wynn Coggins, director for the USPTO's Group 3620 (Electronic Commerce), has written an article called "When is an Electronic Document a Printed Publication for Prior Art Purposes?

New Report: Patents per 100K Workers, 2001-2006

The State Science and Technology Institute (SSTI), a nonprofit organization that supports economic development through science, technology and innovation, has released a new report showing the ranking in number of patents issued per 100,000 workers for U.S. states and the District of Columbia from 2001-2006.

West coast states improved the most over the five-year period with Washington and Oregon ranked #1 and #2 and California at #4. In the farm belt, Kansas (#4) and Oklahoma (#7) showed strong growth, as did Massachusetts (#3) and Rhode Island (#6) in New England, which has been a hub of innovation for 150 years. Minnesota, Georgia and Colorado rounded out the top ten. Surprisingly, Idaho, which ranked #1 in all five years, had the fouth largest decline (-18.7), dropping from 328.2 patents per 100K workers in 2001 to 266.8 per worker in 2006. Idaho is in no danger of losing its #1 rank anytime soon, thanks to Boise-based Micron Technology, Inc., one of the top-ten patenting companies in the U.S. The Gem State's two closest competitors, California and Vermont mustered only 161.5 and 160.3 patents per worker in 2006.

Patents Per 100K Workers
% Change 2001-2006

1. Washington 46%
2. Oregon 36.8
3. Massachusetts 14.1
4. Kansas 13.4
5. California 12.9
6. Rhode Island 11
7. Oklahoma 7.7
8. Minnesota 6.3
9. Georgia 6.2
10. Colorado 5.9

EPO Survey: esp@cenet Exporting Function

The EPO is conducting a survey on a proposed improvement to esp@cenet scheduled for 2008. Specifically, they're asking for feedback on the usefulness of exporting data in CSV or XML formats.

Currently, the only patent office database (that I'm aware of) that supports exporting is the German PTO's DEPATISnet. You can download bib data in an Excel spreadsheet from up to 250 records at a time.

This is a wonderful development. At my university a number of engineering and business students take entrepreneurship courses that require them to use patent data to identify key companies/innovators, develop market profiles and analyze long-term industry trends. Being able to export data from esp@cenet would save them a lot of time. In my opinion, CSV is more useful than XML, especially for users such as students and private inventors who are not familiar with XML, since it can be easily imported into a spreadsheet for analysis.

If you're an esp@cenet user and would like to provide feedback, go to the esp@cenet forum at http://forum.espacenet.com/ and look in the Information Channel. You will need to register in order to submit comments and vote.

Dutch Six-Year Patent Will End in 2008

The Netherlands Patent Office has announced that it will phase out its six-year patent (C1 document) in 2008. The six-year patent is a weaker form of patent protection than the standard 20-year patent. An application for a six-year patent is automatically registered without a novelty search or examination 18 months after filing. According to the agency's latest annual report, 602 6-year patents and 1,771 20-year patents were granted in 2005. Of all patents granted, over 50 percent went to private inventors and companies of 1-200 employees.

Obama Promises More Transparency for Patent System

According to a story last month in the World Information Review, presidential candidate Barack Obama would make patent reform a top priority of his administration. One of his ideas is to open up the patent process to citizen input, which I assume would entail establishing a formal patent review program similar to the Community Patent Review Project being piloted by the New York Law School. I'm skeptical that such a system can have a meaningful impact on patent quality. To date, the Peer-to-Patent Project has registered 1,650 reviewers, an impressive number, but they have submitted only 94 pieces of prior art relating to 17 pending applications. Identifying prior art requires deep expertise and excellent analytical skills. Are there really that many qualified people willing to volunteer their time doing such complex work? Or would this just be an open invitation to cranks with time on their hands?

Inventors Hit the Links

I'm not a golfer but I know that golf is one of the world's most popular sports. According to the PGA website, there are 25 million amateur golfers in the U.S. alone. This huge multi-billion dollar industry is fertile ground for inventors seeking to cash in on golfers' legendary passion for anything that promises to improve their game or ease their journey across the fareway. Fans of Caddy Shack will remember Rodney Dangerfield's golf bag equipped with a wet bar, stereo and club dispenser. Professional golf associations, like the PGA, have strict rules on what technological improvements can be allowed. For example, a few years ago two physics professors at Cal Tech invented a ball that would not slice. Their design placed dimples only at the opposite ends of the ball, which greatly improved its aerodynamics. In response, the PGA prohibited balls that did not have a uniform dimple pattern on the entire surface.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I stumbled upon a show on the Golf Channel called Fore Inventors Only. The concept is similar to other invention shows such as American Inventor and Everyday Edisons. A panelist of three golf pros, Stina Sternberg, Bill Harmon and Fulton Allem, were recruited to judge hundreds of golf-related inventions. The grand prize was shelf space at Golfsmith stores for one year and $50,000 in commercial air time on the Golf Channel.

I watched several episodes of this addicting show, and actually liked it better than the other invention shows I've seen. For one thing, the judges were far more professional than the grand standing panel on American Inventor.

Many of the inventions were training devices for improving a golfer's swing or stance. Some of the more bizarre ideas included an electronic caddy that offered encouragement in a grating, robot-like voice; a ball with markings that alinged with the earth's magnetic field; and an golf ball shooting air rifle designed for people with disabilities who want to play golf but could not swing a club. The grand prize went to the inventor of the Club Caddy, an oversized clothspin that attaches to a club shaft to form a tripod that will keep the club upright.

The number of golf inventions is vast. According to esp@cenet, there are some 10,000 patents and published applications for golf clubs and another 6,000 for golf balls, not to mention more than 700 golf training devices.

Big News in Patent Information Land

Joe Ebersole, founder and chief counsel for the Coalition for Patent and Trademark Information Dissemination, died on Oct. 18 in Washington, D.C. There's a brief obit in the December issue of Information Today (not yet available online) and the Washington Post (10/21). Mr. Ebersole was part of the generation that launched the modern information industry in the 1970s and 1980s. In the early 1980s he worked as director of special projects for Mead Central Data (Lexis-Nexis) and in that capacity was responsible for creating Lexpat, the world's first full-text patent system. He later moved into medical information systems.

In the 1990s he established the Coalition in order to oppose patent office efforts to make patent information available on the internet. While Ebersole was often described as a consultant to USPTO management on matters relating to patent automation, he was, in fact, a registered lobbyist whose clients included some of the largest commercial patent information vendors. He worked tirelessly to block the USPTO from improving its website. In my opinion, his influence is one of the reasons why the USPTO web-based patent databases are so under-developed compared to those of other patent offices.

Ebersole's philosophy was straightforward: patent offices had no business providing online patent information to the public that could be provided more efficiently (and at a substantial profit) by private sector vendors. [Ebersole, WPI, 2003] Of course, he conveniently ignored the fact that vendors built their search systems (developed in part with government grants and contracts) using patent data obtained from patent offices at nominal rates. In recent years many vendors have enhanced their products by linking to free patent data on patent office websites, thus avoiding the cost of storing the data and images on their own systems. Ebersole also claimed that resources spent on external information dissemination would be better spent improving internal operations for the benefit of inventors. This is a very old argument. U.S. patent commissioners in the 1870s and 1880s faced similar criticism when they began publishing a weekly gazette of patent abstracts and annual patent indexes.

The Coalition has had little impact outside the U.S. where there is greater support for patent information dissemination as a public good and a means of encouraging economic development. For example, the European Patent Office has continuously improved its esp@cenet system since it was first launched in 1998, adding 60 million patents from more than 70 countries, patent legal status and family data, enabling patent document downloading and printing, etc. According to recent articles and interviews with Wolfgang Pilch, the EPO's principal director for patent information, there are even greater things in store for esp@cenet in 2008. For example, the EPO is investigating the possibility of adding chemical structure and synonym searching.

In retrospect, the views of Mr. Ebersole and his clients were out of step with the times. In the late 1990s citizens in developed countries went online in huge numbers. Libraries, universities and government agencies at all levels turned to the internet as a means of delivering better, more effective services to their constituents. For example, the USPTO is extremely proud of its online patent and trademark application systems, which now handle 50 and 95 percent, respectively, of all new filings. Ebersole and the Coalition's arguments were also undermined by the emergence of other free independent patent databases such as FreePatentsOnline, Google Patents and Patent Lens. These services, which were created by small groups (or individuals) for a variety of entrepreneurial and idealistic motives, offer capabilities that are as good or better than many patent office websites. It will be interesting to see if the Coalition survives without Ebersole at the helm.

Plant Patents & Canadian Pears

Plant patents rarely make the news, so I was delighted to see a story in this weekend's Globe and Mail about a new type of pear cultivated by a team of Canadian scientists. The pear, which is known only by the designation "HW614", is a cross between several types of pears including the familiar Bartletts. It's described as juicy, sweet and huge, "up to four inches in diameter". Presumably Agriculture Canada will come up with a catchier name by the time the pear is ready for market in several years.

David Hunter, one of the scientists responsible for creating the new pear, holds three plant patents on pears identified as "HW610" (marketed as "Harrow Crisp"), "HW616" (marketed as "Harrow Gold") and "Harrow Sweet", but none for "HW614". Perhaps a application is in the works. Most of the research on pears is done at the University of Guelph's Vineland research station, near St. Catherines, Ontario.

The patent classification for pears is PLT/176 with subclasses for Ornamental (PLT/177), Asian (PLT/178) and Rootstock (PLT/179). Since 1930 the USPTO has issued approximately 80 patents for pears.