Petapator: Enhancing USPTO Search

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The art and science of patent searching can be a very personal subject. Patent analysts often gravitate towards using search systems, browsers, or tools that reflect their sensibilities and needs. This means that two excellent patent analysts might use an altogether different setup and be equally productive.

Today we’ll look at another Google Chrome extension that can help your patent searching abilities: Petapator.

Petapator is a continuation of the Aspator add-on for Firefox by the same author, serving to enhance search on the USPTO website with a number of neat features that can save users time and add to their prior art toolbelt.

Read on as we take a look at Petapator and how it can help you enhance your search on the USPTO website!

Downloading Petapator, like any other Google Chrome extension, is a breeze. Simply go here and add the extension. If you don’t end up liking Petapator, Chrome makes it easy to uninstall in one click.

Downloading Petapator, like other Chrome extensions, is a painless process.

There are many benefits Petapator affords that make browsing nicer while looking through results sets on the USPTO website search system (PAFT/AppFT, hereinafter referred to simply as the USPTO website).

After entering your search query and retrieving the results list on the UPSTO website, the first thing you’ll notice is that the results list has a bunch of new “buttons” on the side.

These buttons are shortcuts for the various features of Petapator.

These buttons, and the other buttons added throughout the interface, are the heart of Petapator’s functionality.

They allow you to:

• Save patent records to a folder
• View records in a simplified grid format
• View the Abstract of a patent in pop-up format
• View the Claims of a patent in pop-up format
• View the 1st Claim of a patent in pop-up format
• View the Bibliographic information of a patent in pop-up format
• View a patent in Espacenet
• View a patent in Google Patents
• Download the patent via pat2pdf
• Run statistical analysis of USPTO classification sub-classes

Let’s take a look at one of the coolest group of features: the pop up information sections. Clicking on one of the buttons indicating Claims, Abstract, or Drawings next to a record in the results list will load the information right in the results list with a pop up box that can be closed easily, or kept open as you continue to browse through results. The slight catch to this feature is that not all of the information is available instantly for all 50 hits per page–the buttons show loading symbols until they are ready to be used. However, I found that the loading time was favorable during testing, and the results were a greatly improved experience.

Multiple information windows can be present simultaneously with the use of Petapator.

As you can see (in the re-sized and reduced) image above, Petapator can be used to load many parts of a patent at once, all within the results page. This means that loading and reloading of the results page is not necessary to browse and jump through your results (and nor is loading many windows or tabs). Petapator makes the exploratory phase of a search a more enjoyable user experience.

If you like using the USPTO website, Petapator (or Aspator, if you have Firefox) is a must-try add-on. See if it works for your searching style and let us know what you think in the comments!

This post was contributed by Intellogist Team member Chris Jagalla. The Intellogist blog is provided for free by Intellogist’s parent company Landon IP, a major provider of patent searches, trademark searches, technical translations, and information retrieval services.