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Author Archives: mjwhitekingston
PatentScope Mobile
PatentScope now offers a mobile search interface. As far as I know, this is the first patent office database optimized for mobile devices. Also read that WIPO is planning to add “the bulk” of patent data from the IP5 patent … Continue reading
Posted in Patent databases, PatentScope
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2011 Patent Update @ Chemistry Librarians’ Workshop
A couple of weeks ago I gave a brief update on patent search tool developments at the Chemistry Librarians’ Workshop at the University of Toronto. One of the topics I covered was the recent addition of Markush searching in SciFinder. … Continue reading
Posted in Patent databases, Patent information
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Beach Chair Breaks New Ground
The first rule of inventing might be: no matter how commonplace a device is, someone will always think of a way to improve it. Take, for example, award-winning industrial designer Larry Laske’s new beach chair. It’s basically a chair backrest molded … Continue reading
Posted in chairs, inventors, Larry Laske
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ECLA Change Reports
The European Patent Office is now publishing a monthly report on changes to the European Classification system (ECLA). ECLA has about 140,000 sub-classes, making it on par with the US Patent Classification. Changes are grouped in three categories: Added, Deleted … Continue reading
Posted in classification orders, ECLA
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Common Patent Classification Project
Interesting story in IP Frontline about the development of a common classification scheme by the EPO and USPTO. The project is one of ten joint initiatives announced last year by the USPTO, EPO, JPO, KIPO and SIPO. (See the Five … Continue reading
Posted in classification, ECLA, Five IP Offices, USPC
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Plastics Archive at Syracuse Univ Library
Syracuse University Library’s Plastics Collection is a great source of information on all things plastic from the late 1800s to the present. Many objects in the collection have patent references.
Posted in Plastics
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Patents for a Royal Wedding
Since an estimated 2 billion people will watch Prince William marry Kate Middleton tomorrow, I thought a royal wedding themed patent story was in order. Flowers play a prominent role in weddings, so I searched for plant patents named for … Continue reading
Posted in plant patents, royalty, weddings
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US Patent Counts, Q1 2011
In the first quarter of 2011 the USPTO issued 62,132 patents, an increase of 1.7 percent from the previous quarter and 11.9 percent from the same period last year. The number of published applications declined by 4 percent from the … Continue reading
Posted in Patent statistics, USPTO
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World Cities Ranked by Patent Productivity
Today’s Globe and Mail published an interesting list of 24 cities ranked by the number of U.S. patents per 100,000 population. The top ranked Canadian city was Vancouver (11th), followed by Toronto (12th), Calgary (13th), Montreal (15th) and Halifax (20th). Seven … Continue reading
Posted in Canada, economic development, Innovation, Patent statistics
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FPO Adds Non-Patent Literature Collection
FreePatentsOnline (FPO) has added a full-text collection of non-patent literature to its suite of patent databases. Not much is stated about the collection, but according to the copyright notice that appears in each record it appears to be sourced from … Continue reading
Posted in FreePatentsOnline, NPL, Patent databases
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Patent Librarian's Notebook 