Patent Librarian's Notebook

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.

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.

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 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.

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

The EPO has posted new “tips and tricks” for searching Japanese and Chinese patent databases on its FAQ – Far East web site. The site contains information and answers to questions about industrial property information in Japan, China and Korea.

WIPO Magazine has a new look. The April 2006 edition is now available on the WIPO website at: http://www.wipo.int/freepublications/en/?sub_col=mag. Articles include:

* The Return of the Lion – the battle over rights to the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” between Disney and the children of the original Zulu composer.
* Avian flu drugs and patents
* Using photographs of copyrighted works (IP for business)

The New York Times reported on April 10 on a new study that found that university scientists who received grants from the National Cancer Institute received a large number of patents and started companies in “surprisingly high numbers.”

The study was conducted by economists at Indiana University and the Max Planck Institute of Economics in Germany with the support of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The report is available at www.kauffman.org.

In related news, Research Money magazine reported that revenue from intellectual property created by Canadian universities and hospitals had declined 7.7 percent in 2004. However, the number of invention disclosures increased 19 percent to 1,353, while patented inventions increased 23 percent to 647. These are preliminary statistics compiled by StatsCan from a survey that went to 88 universities and 47 hospitals. The final tally will be published in a working paper later this year.

Researchers at the University of California received 390 patents in 2005, according to the annual list published Thursday by the USPTO. This is the 12th consecutive year that UC has ranked number 1 among U.S. universities receiving patents. UC has received more than 5,500 U.S. patents since Jan. 1, 1976 and is the designated assignee on more than 1,400 pending applications published since March 2001.

For more information about university patenting and technology transfer, see the Association of Univeristy Technology Managers (AUTM) web site. AUTM regularly publishes reports and surveys on academic patenting and licensing.

According to the latest report of the American Customer Satisfaction Index e-gov survey, “Customer satisfaction with federal Web sites dipped slightly last quarter for the first time in a year, although users are generally more satisfied with the information the government has online.” (Reported in Government Computer News, March 21, 2006.)

Apparently, the USPTO is no longer participating in the ACSI e-gov survey, as it doesn’t appear among the Q1 scores. It was first included two years ago in the March 2004 ACSI report. ACSI scores are archived at http://www.theacsi.org/government.htm.