The USPTO has updated its homepage, the first major redesign in more than five years. The new design is modern and eye-catching. Unfortunately, the search interface of the USPTO patent database looks like it did in 1999.
Applications for patents and other forms of IP rebounded strongly in 2010, so says a new report from WIPO.
Inventors and companies filed 1.98 million patent applications worldwide in 2010, a new record. China and the U.S. accounted for about 80 percent of the growth. Canada experienced a slight decline of 5.1 percent; however, residents of Canada filed more than 80 percent of their patent applications in other countries.
PatentScope now includes records for Russian and Soviet patent documents from 1919 to 2010, about 1.4 million patent documents. Full-text is not include, but abstracts are available from 1960 forward.
The USPTO and EPO have launched a website for information about the Cooperative Patent Classification Project, which aims to create a shared patent classification system based on ECLA.
In 1942 Lamarr and composer George Antheil patented (US 2292387) a “secret communication system” designed to prevent enemies from jamming radio-controlled torpedoes. The invention was based on radio “frequency-hopping” and forms the basis of modern wireless communications systems. Lamarr’s patent has been cited in 36 patents since 1976, including most recently in US 8031129, and in ~70 documents indexed in Google Scholar.
Ed Pauls, inventor of the NordicTrack cross-country ski exerciser, died last month at the age of 80. He patented his ski machine in 1977 (US 4,023,795). Pauls was not the first inventor to conceive of an exercise machine that simulated skiing. However, his design was small and portable enough to be used in most homes.
The success of the NordicTrack inspired numerous other designs. In 1980, just a few years after Pauls received his patent, the USPTO issued just 179 patents for exercise machines (Class 482). By the end of the 1990s the USPTO was issuing more than 350 patents for exercise machines per year. In 2010, the USPTO issued 736 patents for exercise devices. The top patent owners include Nautilus, Icon IP and Brunswick Corporation.
There are more than 17,000 patents classified in Class 482, 33 percent issued since 2000. The earliest patent in the class was issued on Sept. 9, 1825 to John Tustin of Philadelphia for a railroad turntable design. The first patent for a true “exercising machine”, US 3,480, was issued on March 13, 1844 to Oliver Halsted of New York.
Statistical country profiles for more than one hundred countries are now available on the WIPO website. Each profile provides information on patents, utility models, trademarks and industrial designs from 1995 to the present. Patent applications by the top fields of technology are given.This is a very useful resource for librarians, researchers, and students looking for national IP statistics.
The national patent collection of Kenya (KE) is now available in PatentScope. Bibliographic records for about 323 patent documents published from May 1996 to Jan. 2011 are included. Full-text documents are not available at this time.
The USPTO’s national network of libraries that provide patent and trademark information to the public has a new name. The libraries formerly called Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries will know be known as Patent and Trademark Resource Centers. There are currently more than 80 PTRCs in 46 states and Puerto Rico.
WIPO will phase out its PatentScope “Classic” search system on Oct. 13, 2011. All searches will be directed to the new PatentScope, which was introduced in 2009. WIPO launched the original PatentScope in 2003.
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