Legal Research

US Patent Counts, Q1 2010

Posted on March 30, 2010
The USPTO issued 55,488 patents in Q1, 11.3 percent more than the previous quarter and a 12 percent increase over the same period last year. In fact, this was the largest quarterly total in five years. The number of published applications was 77,520, a decline of 12...

Fostering Canadian Innovation

Posted on March 12, 2010
Today's Globe and Mail has another op-ed piece arguing that Canada needs to do better at promoting innovation and investing in R&D. ("Innovation is Our Hidden Deficit") It's probably true that Canada could do more at home to support innovation and the commercialization of new products...

Hidden Gems in the USPC: Cross-References & Digests

Posted on March 11, 2010
I'm not a huge fan of the U.S. Patent Classification System. It's not intuitive and its documentation can be intimidating. The structure of the USPC is a mish-mash of historical practices and applied theories. Although it's frequently described as a hierarchical system, it's actually flat, like a train...

Bird Airbags?

Posted on February 26, 2010
Last year a large wind farm went up on an island near Kingston, Ontario, where I live. The installation consists of 86 turbines scattered around the island, dozens of which are visible from the city?s waterfront. The decision to build the farm was controversial...

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Patent Database Review

Posted on February 23, 2010
There were a lot of developments in patent information last year. Below are some of the highlights from my favorite public patent databases and related websites. Canadian Patents Database (CIPO) The Canadian Patents Database, which is maintained by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, contains more than two million Canadian patents and published applications from 1869 to the present...

Converting CO2 into Fuel?

Posted on February 08, 2010
Most people believe that the only solution to global climate change is government-imposed regulations to curb the amount of CO2 spewing into the atmosphere. But perhaps there is a market based alternative? Neil Reynolds in the Globe & Mail recently mentioned an intriguing new technology developed by Carbon Sciences, Inc...

World Intellectual Property Day - 10th Anniversary

Posted on February 08, 2010
The theme of World Intellectual Property Day, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, is "Innovation - Linking the World." There are many innovations that have brought the world closer together. Here is my top ten list of representative technologies and the decades in which they emerged...

New: Intellogist Blog

Posted on January 28, 2010
The Intellogist, a wiki for patent searchers, has launched a blog. It's a nice addition to a site that already has some great resources, including patent search system profiles and comparisons, coverage information and best practices for patent searching...

PCT Coverage in Public Patent Databases

Posted on January 26, 2010
How the data in a database or search engine is structured is as important (or more so) as the data itself. I was reminded of this old rule-of-thumb a couple of weeks ago when I decided to compare coverage of PCT applications in public patent databases, namely PatentScope, FreePatentsOnline, esp@cenet, and Patent Lens...

Espacenet Enhancements

Posted on January 25, 2010
This morning I discovered several nice enhancements in esp@cenet:1. Expanded search terms For years the maximum number of search terms you could input in any esp@cenet field was four. This limitation appears to have been lifted. I was able to successfully run searches using five or more terms...

USPTO Reorganizes Classes 210 and 707

Posted on January 25, 2010
The USPTO has published two more classification orders affecting Class 210, Liquid Purification and Separation, and Class 707, Data Processing: Database and File Management or Data Structures. (#1890 and #1893)Approximately 83,767 patents and 14,473 published applications are classified in Class 210...

Boliven Withdraws from the Field

Posted on January 18, 2010
According to an e-mail notice sent to members last week, Boliven, a social networking service aimed at inventors, researchers and IP professionals will cease operations today. It was still online as of 5:00pm EST today. (Jan. 22)The service was launched just a year ago...

Wikipedia Citations in Patents Up 59 Percent

Posted on January 07, 2010
The number of U.S. patents issued last year that contain one or more references to Wikipedia articles totalled 809, a 59 percent jump from 2008. Several years ago the USPTO banned patent examiners from using Wikipedia as a source of information for determining patentability of inventions...

Class 705 Reorganized

Posted on November 09, 2009
The USPTO has abolished subclass 14 in Class 705 and replaced it with three dozen subclasses, 14.1 through 14.73. The changes are contained in Classification Order #1888, which was published on Sept. 1, 2009. Established in 1997, Class 705 covers patents relating to Data Processing: Financial, Business Practice, Management or Cost/Price Determination...

Class 89 Expanded: Cross-Reference Art Collection Subclasses

Posted on November 09, 2009
Just in time for Remembrance Day (Veterans Day in the U.S.), the USPTO has added a series of cross-reference art collection subclasses (901-939) to Class 89, Ordnance. The changes are outlined in Classification Order #1889, which was published on October 6...

Patent Info News Supplement / EPO Discontinues DVD Products

Posted on October 27, 2009
The EPO is now publishing a supplement with its Patent Information News newsletter that covers data and technical topics formerly covered in the INPADOC Patent News. e.g. Legal status codes, country coverage, etc. The first issue contains a nice overview of patent procedure in the U...

Patented Gas Mask Bra Wins Ig Nobel Award

Posted on October 02, 2009
Dr. Elena Bodnar of Chicago has received an Ig Nobel Award for her design of a bra that converts into a pair of gas masks. Dr. Bodnar was granted US patent 7,255,627 B2 on Aug. 14, 2007.

US Patent Counts, Q3 2009

Posted on September 29, 2009
The USPTO issued 47,042 patents in Q3, a decline of 3.2 percent from the previous quarter and the lowest total this year. The number of published applications was also down slightly, dropping to 76,040 from 81,288 in Q2. Despite this slowdown the USPTO is still on track to exceed last year's total of 312,854 published applications...

Patent Map from FreePatentsOnline

Posted on September 24, 2009
FreePatentsOnline has launched a new patent mapping service called Local Patents. The service combines inventor and assignee city data from 3 million US patents and published applications with a map of the US generated by Google Maps. It's very cool. You can drill down from the state level to city/town...

Design Patent #600,000

Posted on September 16, 2009
Design patent no. 600,000 was issued this week to Goal Zero of Spanish Fork, Utah. The patent protects the design of a battery system.

Robotic Fish Farms

Posted on August 21, 2009
Fish farming is under attack from environmentalists who claim that it pollutes bays and inlets and spreads infectious diseases like salmon anaemia. The main problem is that cages used in most fish farms are fixed in place, which concentrates fish waste and uneaten food on the sea floor...

Underwater Logging

Posted on August 21, 2009
A story in the Globe and Mail this week reported on a project to harvest dead trees, including valuable teak and mahogany, from a man-made lake in Ghana. The total value of the wood is estimated at up to $3 billion. This isn't the first time that entrepreneurs have proposed recovering wood from the bottom of lakes and rivers...

New Leadership at the USPTO

Posted on August 16, 2009
The USPTO has a new leader. On Thursday, August 13, David Kappos was sworn in as the Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He's the 52nd person to hold that position since it was established in 1836...

"Investing in patents is no country for old men."

Posted on August 14, 2009
... That's the message one pundit sees in this week's patent infringement ruling against Microsoft. The article makes some interesting points about the cost of litigating a patent lawsuit and speculates on why Microsoft (or any high tech company) might chance a lawsuit rather than license a new and unproven technology...

Patent Ruling Against Microsoft

Posted on August 13, 2009
The big news today is the patent dispute between software leviathan Microsoft and i4i, a small (30 employees) Toronto-based software developer. Two years ago i4i sued Microsoft for using its patented technology in Microsoft Word. Yesterday, a judge in Texas overseeing the case ordered Microsoft to stop selling Word in sixty days...

Les Paul, 1915-2009

Posted on August 13, 2009
World-renowned musician Les Paul, whose invention of the solid-body electric guitar transformed popular music in the 1950s and 60s, died today at the age of 94. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2005.Mr. Paul held at least two patents related to electric guitars...

US Assignment Data in espacenet

Posted on August 12, 2009
The June issue of Patent Information News states that the EPO is in the process of reloading US assignment records into its legal status database. When the project is finished US patents in esp@cenet will be linked to more than six million assignments dating back to 1981...

Class 310 Reorganized

Posted on August 06, 2009
The USPTO has reorganized Class 310: Electrical Generator or Motor Structure. Details are provided in Classification Order #1887. Class 310, which was created in 1953, is a bit atypical in that it is a residual class intended to cover technology related to electrical generator or motor structure not classified elsewhere...

Nortel's Patent Plum

Posted on August 06, 2009
Nortel Networks, one of Canada's leading telecommunication technology companies during the 20th century, is bankrupt and in the process of selling off its assets, including its hefty portfolio of thousands of patents and other intellectual property. This week a high profile spat broke out between two rival bidders, Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, and mobile phone giant Ericsson...

One Giant Step for Mankind? Moon Ads?

Posted on August 05, 2009
While the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of the first manned-mission to the moon, an entrepreneur in Utah wants to patent a system for creating ads on the moon. David Jones, owner of Moon Publicity of West Valley City, Utah, has filed a U.S. provisional application for "Shadow Shaping," a system that uses robotic vehicles to carve product names, logos and web URLs into the surface of the moon...

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