Simple Patents at the NAPP Conference

by Stewart Walsh on July 28, 2010

Pat was a guest speaker at the annual conference of the National Association of Patent Practitioners.  His speech was on patentability research.  This is, of course, our major service to inventors and IP professionals alike, and we know quite a lot about doing good research and getting good results.  So when the folks at NAPP wanted a pro to teach the ins and out of quality research, they turned to us!

Although the presentation was focused towards industry professionals, we wanted to post it because there are some useful tips for anyone looking to do patent research.

The information in the presentation goes along very well with our patent search tutorial available here.  Like our tutorial, the presentation focuses on the importance of class-based search strategy.

BTW, NAPP is a great organization for finding patent professionals to work with in your area.  Check them out here.

A Word About Patent Classification

by Stewart Walsh on July 22, 2010

Classifactions are categories into which patents are placed based on their features.  Every patent document contains at least one, and in most cases, 3-4 classifications.  There are just under 500 main classes, which are subdivided into several hundred subclasses each, adding up to over 100,000 classifications.  Notation for class and subclass is written class/subclass.  The home page for the US Class schedule can be found at: http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/classification/.

A few examples of main classes are: Class 2 – Apparel; Class 220 – Receptacles; and Class 362 – Illumination.  Subclasses are listed in a tree structure, where each subclass further narrows a another subclass.  To see this tree, look at Figure 3.  Here we see the class schedule open to the top of main class 2 – Apparel.  As, seen, a few subclass examples from Class 2 are:

·    2/456  – Apparel/Guard or Protector/ Body Cover

·    2/457  – Apparel/ Guard or Protector/ Body Cover/ Hazardous Material Body Cover

·    2/458  – Apparel/ Guard or Protector/ Body Cover/ Thermal Body Cover

When we do a search, rather than plug keywords into a search engine, we look for classes and subclasses where relevant patents are most likely to be located.  When we find those subclasses, we search them as thoroughly as possible.  In most cases, we will search the top 2 to 5 subclasses completely.  This means going over a much larger set of data, but we do not believe it is possible to do a good patent search using just simple keyword searching.

Finally a Gift Suitable for both Mothers Day and Fathers Day!

June 15, 2010

In keeping with the age-old tradition of inventing by juxtaposition (see hamburger earmuffs), this highly functional and aesthetically pleasing invention “Cigar Lighter and Perfumery Ejector Combined” combines the lighting of cigars with the dispensing of perfume.  So if you’re a cigar and perfume enthusiast on a budget, it’s nice to know you have the option of [...]

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