Patent and Trademark Office

U.S. Patents FuUtext U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Dialog full-text U.S. patents... 

U.S. Patents. This file, produced by Derwent, Inc., covers U.S. patents from 1971 to the present. The database iacludes all bibliographic and front page information and the text of all claims. (Prom 1971 to 1974 the claims from many patents were not available from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) source tapes, and therefore are not iacluded.) The complete cl aim text can be searched from 1971 but can be ptinted only from 1982. Tides and patentee names are present ia their original form, aeither expanded nor standardized. There is no enhanced iadexiag. Examiner citations are directly searchable, and USPTO classification is updated when the tapes are received from the Patent Office. 

APS (Automated Patent Searching) U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) MicroPatent covers U.S. granted patents 1975—present first page and exemplary claim updated monthly within two weeks of final issue date each month cumulated to one disk/three years... 

A request for reexamination may be made by the patentee, a third party, or the Commissioner of the Patent and Trademark Office whenever a new question of patentabiUty arises. This new question of patentabiUty has to be raised in the form of a pubHcation such as a journal article or a patent which was not considered during the prior prosecution. Reexarnination is a more expedited and economical means of receiving a judgment on whether or not a patent is vaUd in advance of Htigation. 

United States Patent and Trademark Office, Guide for the Preparation of Patent Drawings, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1993. 

Under U.S. law, the inventor is defined as the owner of the patent unless the patent rights have been assigned to his or her employer, or some other individual or organization. Designations of assignment are typically filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (U.S. PTO) prior to the issuance of patents, and the name of the assignee is printed on the patent. In most countries outside of the United States, the patentee is the employer, rather than the employed inventor. 

Manual of Patent Examining Procedure, Section 901.04 [Revision 14], U.S. Department of Commerce, Patent and Trademark Office, Washington,... 

Commerce Department Commerce Census Bureau, economics, trade. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Patent and Trademark Office... 

The Trademark Reporter, a pubhcation of the United States Trademark Association, carries in its monthly issues and yearly index a revealing tabulation of marks involved in decisions of the Patent and Trademark Office and the courts, and found to be confusingly similar as appHed to the goods for which they were intended. 

Bureau of National Affaks, U.S. Patents Quarterly, Washington, D.C. This weekly pubHcation contains decisions of the courts and Patent and Trademark Office ki patent, trademark, and copyright cases. 

A patent file history, also called a file wrapper, is the complete set of documents for a patent filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. These papers chronicle communications and actions taken by the patent examiner, the applicant, and the applicant s attorney from the time of patent application to issue. File histories are available from commercial services such as Intellectual Property Network (described below). 

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web Patent Databases. The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) [72] offers free World Wide Web access, http // www.uspto.gov/main/patents.htm, to a bibliographic patent database that uses the most current patent classification system, this may not match the classification data that appears on the printed patent, and to a full-text patent database that uses the classification data that appear on the printed patent, this may not match the current classification data. The databases start with January 1, 1976, patents. The full text of a patent includes all bibliographical data (e.g., inventor s name, the patent s title, the assignee s name, etc.) and the abstract, full description of the invention, and the claims. All the words in the text of the patent are searchable. If the patent number is known, the patent, regardless of year, can be ordered from the PTO. Automated searching of 1971 to date patents is available at some of the Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries. Prior to 1971 searching can be done at the PTO facilities or at the Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries. Commercial patent search services are also available. 

Derwent International Patent Family File and U.S. Patents Full Text. Derwent International Patent Family File (DIPF) [75] provides access to 20 million patents issued by 40 patent-issuing authorities, covering more than 10 million inventions as far back as 1963. The DIPF is linked to U.S. Patents Full-Text (US-PAT) [75]. US-PAT contains the full text of more than 2 million patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office since 1976. DIPF and US-PAT are available on the commercial online service Westlaw. 

United States Patent and Trademark Office, [Internet]. URL http //www.uspto.gov/, accessed 1-11-2002. 

Most of the equivalent patents are incorporated in the discussion, to give a sense of the international coverage to the reader. A summary of the main claim is included as a definition of the property subject matter. As could be seen the property subject matter of a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) patent generally, is identical to one of the corresponding US patent (from the US Patent and Trademark Office, USPTO). However, in some instances a WIPO patent has more than one US equivalent patent. The equivalence between WIPO and US patents will be discussed for each particular case wherever relevant. 

Today, nearly every important reagent or method reported in the literature has a patent or patent application associated with it, especially if it has potential commercial value. A search of the patent databases, such as the United States Patent and Trademark Office (http //www. uspto.gov/) or the European Patent Office (http //ep.espacenet.com/) for key words or the potential names of inventors can provide a list of any existing issued patents or patent applications related to a bioconjugate technique or compound. In addition, a fee-based service such as Delphion is particularly effective at finding patents related to any subject matter (http //www. delphion.com/). 

In the USA, purity alone often facilitates patenting of a product of nature (Table 4.1). The US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) recognizes purity as a change in form of the natural material. For example, although vitamin B12 was a known product of nature for many years, it was only available in the form of a crude liver extract, which was of no use therapeutically. Development of a suitable... 

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