Searching for Beauty: How to Search for US Plant Patents

Spring is here, and since the azaleas are blooming and gardens everywhere are looking lovely, I thought I’d honor spring by writing a quick primer on searching for U.S. plant patents.  The USPTO website provides a thourough guide on how to apply for a plant patent, and this guide gives the following definition for plant patents in the U.S.:

A plant patent is granted by the Government to an inventor (or the inventor’s heirs or assigns) who has invented or discovered and asexually reproduced a distinct and new variety of plant, other than a tuber propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state. The grant, which lasts for 20 years from the date of filing the application, protects the inventor’s right to exclude others from asexually reproducing, selling, or using the plant so reproduced.

Plant patents account for only a very small percentage of total US patent applications and granted patents: in 2012, there were only 1,149 plant patent applications, out of 576,763 total applications, and 860 granted plant patents.  So where should you begin your hunt for this rare species of US patent?

Read on to learn the best search strategies for searching for plant patent records on the USPTO website and Google Patents!

Is it Finally Here? ProQuest Dialog Shows Off at PIUG 2013

The annual Patent Information Users Group (PIUG) 2013 conference took place in late April in Alexandria, VA, and I hope you were following @Intellogist for all the up-to-the-minute details! One of the most fun things about this conference is seeing demonstrations of new product features. I made a point of stopping at the ProQuest Dialog booth to check in on the product, and was excited to find that this long-anticipated system is nearing completion.

ProQuest Dialog is important because it finally provides access to many valuable data files that were previously only accessible via dinosaur legacy Dialog products. It’s also exciting because it retains a transactional billing model, while allowing searchers to see record previews before actually buying access to the record. Read more to find out how this product will support your prior art search needs.

Two Fantastic Updates to Free Patent Search Tools: Espacenet and PATENTSCOPE

Free patent search tools like Espacenet and PATENTSCOPE are an excellent resource for both casual  and professional patent searchers who want to quickly locate data on a specific patent document or scope out more detailed citation, legal status, and family data for both US and non-US patent documents. Recently, both Espacenet (created by the EPO) and PATENTSCOPE (created by WIPO) released some useful new updates: direct links to the Common Citation Document (CCD) viewer are now accessible from INPADOC family lists on Espacenet, and a new collection of US patent documents has been added to PATENTSCOPE. 

After the jump, learn about the new citation viewing features for INPADOC families on Espacenet, and find out the coverage of PATENTSCOPE’s new US collection!

Major Updates to PatBase and PatBase Express

PatBase is a unique patent search platform created by Minesoft and RWS Group which organizes patent publications under broad family-based records, and PatBase Express is a simplified version of PatBase targeted to novice patent searchers. We last took an indepth look at some of the newest features added to both PatBase and PatBase Express back in November 2012, when a Classification Finder, new folder export option, a new Excel export format, a PatBase Express interface in Spanish, and many other improvements were added to both systems.  Minesoft recently announced a number of new interface and coverage updates that have been added to both platforms, including the option to display Claims or Descriptions for a single publication according to your preferred country, more search and display tools on PatBase Express, translated assignee names for non-Latin families, and broader full-text coverage for Russia, Japan, and Taiwan. 

Continue reading for a quick summary of all the coverage updates and interface improvements on both the PatBase and PatBase Express platforms for Spring 2013!

Espacenet Assistant: a free resource to learn about patent information, search techniques, and more

The Espacenet Assistant is a new tool on the Espacenet site that aims to help users understand patent information, search basics, and new features within Espacenet itself. Available in English, German, and French, the tool is user friendly and easy to navigate. Especially helpful in that regard is the interface which includes a table of contents on the left side, back/forward advancement on the bottom, and web-like home/directory at the top of most pages.

From the start, the tool offers to let you take a guided tour through a large swath of information or cut to the chase with a listing of “crash courses” that get to the meat of a specific topic of information.

The “crash course” system allows users to learn at their own pace and review previous material.

European Unitary Patent: A Quick Primer

The European Unitary Patent has been a long time coming (depending on who you ask)! In any case, the process to get us where we are today has been a lenghty one. The reality of a European Union-centric patent may seem obvious to outsiders, following the economic ties generated by the creation of the EU, but the unitary patent has long been a subject of contention.

The European Patent Convention (EPC) of 1973 is the origin of the current “EP” patent administered by the European Patent Office. This patent provides protection in the member states (and extension states) party to the EPC.

The new unitary patent will live alongside the traditional “EP” patent as an option, according to the European Patent Office:

A unitary patent will be a European patent granted by the EPO under the provisions of the European Patent Convention to which unitary effect for the territory of the 25 participating states is given after grant, at the patentee’s request. The unitary patent will thus not affect the EPO’s day-to-day search, examination and granting work.

New Indonesian Coverage in DWPI & the Digital Public Library of America Gears Up

Hello Intellogist Blog readers! Today we’ll touch on two interesting news stories: DWPI celebrates its 50th year with new Indonesian coverage, and the Digital Public Library of America is getting ready to launch a new project in April with the addition of National Archives material.

Derwent World Patents Index is a long respected and unique source of value added patent data. Specializing and known for human-generated content such as translated and summarized abstracts, controlled vocabulary, and indexing, DWPI has entered its 50th year of availability.

Coverage within DWPI has grown in recent years to encompass many emerging markets, and Indonesian coverage is the latest example of this expansion. Coverage will include all patent applications and Indonesian Simple Patents published from 2010 forward. The 50th data source in DWPI will be deployed in the following way according to CAS:

Records identified as basics will have DWPI titles and abstracts and manual coding, with deep indexing for chemical records where applicable. The first records, from October 2012, appeared in DWPI update 201309, with the most recently published records being loaded first, followed by the backfile to 2010 over subsequent weeks. The backfile load is expected to be completed in Q2.