Category Archives: Uncategorized

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, … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

Last week the CBC aired the results of its “Greatest Canadian Invention” poll. The top three picks were: 1. Insulin (1921) – Banting and Best2. Light bulb (1874) – Woodward and Evans3. Telephone (1876) – Bell Americans might be surprised … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →