patent searching — stillwater, oklahoma

I ran across another patent searching tutorial this afternoon and since it is in “my neighborhood”, I thought it should receive a mention.

From Polson Enterprises:

Introduction

Many inventors conduct a preliminary patent search prior to enlisting a patent agent or patent attorney to file a patent. This search is usually solely conducted to determine uniqueness. If they find no patents exactly like their invention they are happy and continue on their merry way. This is a very poor approach. We encourage examining patents closely to find additional possible product features, identify other potential uses for products, identify companies recently receiving patents in the area (potential licensees), closely study the background sections and any data presented in the background sections and any data presented in the patents. You can learn a great deal from those who have gone before.

This page contains a few links to non-U.S. patent information, however all the comments only apply to searching U.S. Patents.

This page does NOT address these questions; “How can I protect my idea?, Is my invention patentable?, Should I seek patent protection?, What kind of patent protection should I seek?, When should I patent my invention?, How much does a patent cost?, How do I license an invention?, Which web site is best to use when searching patents? Does my invention infringe on someone else’s patent(s)?, Should I get more than one patent?, Should I file foreign patents? How can I avoid being caught in an invention scam? These questions are best left to patent attorneys, patent agents, licensing professionals and reputable inventor organizations. DO NOT ask us these questions !!! In Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Inventors Congress and the Oklahoma Inventors Assistance Service at OSU are excellent resources. The United Inventors Association and National Inventor Fraud Center are good national resources. Inventors Digest magazine an excellent source in its own right, provides an online list of inventors groups around the country where you can obtain meet other inventors and often receive assistance with your problems.

In Oklahoma – the patent deposit library is located at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma.  The reference librarians are always extremely helpful and it is the first place I recommend clients to visit if they are interested in doing their own patent searching.  Even though most patents are now searchable online, the ability to flip through the drawings of issued patents is still preferred (if not essential) when searching mechanical type inventions.

What are y’alls (Okie speak) experiences with the patent deposit libraries in your states?

You may be interested in reading the following related posts:

1. Attention Oklahoma Inventors
2. How Are You Celebrating National Inventors’ Month?
3. USPTO screencast part 1 – keyword searching patent information
4. patent searching tutorial reference site
5. ATTENTION OKLAHOMA INVENTORS!

Posted by Douglas Sorocco, August 29, 2004 at 4:48 pm
Permalink: patent searching — stillwater, oklahoma
2 Comments

Comments

On August 30th, 2004 at 3:19pm Russ Krajec said…

Personally, I found the PDL in Denver to be next to useless. Every patent is on Microfilm, but they are sorted by number rather than class like at the Public Search Room at the Patent Office.

It is like having 6.7million documents in random order. Each time you need a patent, you must search for a roll of Microfilm, load the machine, find the specific patent. Find that the patent doesn’t apply, unload the machine, and repeat.

I tell clients it is a waste of time to go there.

If the PDL were organized by class/subclass, I would spend time there myself.

I asked someone at the PTO when they might make the public search terminals available in the PDL’s. These systems are linked to the PTO database and are the same search tools used by examiners. In a few keystrokes, you can select entire classes or keywords and blast through several hundred patents as fast as you can hit the down key. It makes searching incredibly fast.

The answer was (this data is a year or so old) that the PTO was thinking of putting a terminal or two in Silicon Valley and in Detroit, at the PDL. I guess you need an incredible amount of bandwidth to run the application and their database would be taxed by too many outside searchers.

On August 31st, 2004 at 7:02pm Jake said…

Ah, the Stillwater patent library. I loved that place.