Free Features of Patent Buddy, Part 2: Create a Patent Portfolio and View Top Patent Attorneys

Last time, we looked at the patent search and analysis options of the online community Patent Buddy.  Patent Buddy is a free patent search and analysis website originally created by a group of patent attorneys in 2007.  The site offers free search of US patent records after 1980, as well as search sections for patent owners, inventors, IPC classes, patent attorneys, and patent firms.  The site also includes some data visualization features, such as a breakdown of patent owners within a specific IPC class.

Registered users of Patent Buddy get the added benefit of access to the Dashboard, My Portfolio and Following sections of the website, where the user can select to receive updates related to chosen patent records, owners, inventors, and technology classes.  Patent Buddy also includes a community for registered users, who can view a directory of other members (and add their profile to the directory), join groups, and post or view job offers.  Finally, Patent Buddy has created its own lists of top-rated patent prosecutors, firms, owners, and inventors.

Continue reading to learn about these portfolio, alert, and community features of Patent Buddy!

Free Features of Patent Buddy, Part 1: Patent Search and Analysis

Patent analysts require sophisticated tools to create detailed and customized patent landscapes for clients who need to  gain insight into a particular technology field or group of competitors.  Analysts can take their pick from a number of subscription-based patent analysis and visualization tools, but free patent analysis and visualization products are few and far between.  Even when a patent search site offers free visualization tools, the product is usually very basic.  Patexia, for example, allows users to create simple graphs based on searches of US patent documents dating back to 1974.  This tool doesn’t even reach the complexity or coverage of the patent analysis features offered in conjunction with subscription patent search systems like Thomson Innovation or TotalPatent, but the free tool is a fast and easy way to quickly visualize trends relating to a particular IPC code, country, assignee, agent, or inventor over a period of time (for US patent records). In short, free patent analysis tools may provide a useful informal overview of trends for smaller US patent datasets, but results should ultimately be taken with a grain of salt.

Bearing that in mind, I recently visited a free patent community called Patent Buddy, which offers a host of free patent search and analysis features covering US patent records after 1980.  The site also allows users to search through patent owners, inventors, agents, and technology classes, and some visualization options offer helpful insights into patent ownership trends within specific IPC classes.

After the jump, learn about all the search and analysis features available on Patent Buddy for US patent documents, patent owners, inventors, agents, and IPC classes!