2009 Patent Update Chemistry Librarians Workshop University of Toronto / June 5, 2009 Michael White Engineering & Science Library Queen’s University 1

Stormy Weather  Fewer applications in EPO  1% (big drop in Q4) JPO  1.2% UKIPO  12% USPTO  10% in 2009? WIPO  2.4% (smallest increase since 2005)  Fewer maintenance fees paid Companies weeding portfolios CIPO budget = 52.3% USPTO budget = 31.4%  Less revenue USPTO hiring freeze AU, DK, UK, EPO staff layoffs Cancelled or delayed IT projects? CLOSED 2 Sources: USPTO, EPO, JPO annual reports; IAM Magazine

Gloomy Forecast  Quality counts! Patent offices tightening up on allowed applications: USPTO 44.2% (  from 72% in 2000) JPO 48% EPO42%  Backlogs still growing: EPO250K / 40 months  1 million by 2011? USPTO1.2 million / 32.3 months  USPTO abandoned applications up 25% 3 Sources: USPTO, EPO, JPO annual reports; IAM Magazine

Milder in Asia  50+ % of new applications are filed in Asia (1.76 million worldwide)  828K Chinese applications  Apps per million pop. (US = 800) JP, KR2500  Apps per $million in R&D (US =.8) KR5.5 CN, JP3.5  Top 25 university assignees #10 Tsinghua University (Beijing) #24 Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology Sources: WIPO 2008 World Patent Report; Boliven Top 25 Report,

Patent Office Cooperation  USPTO Patent Prosecution Highway (est. in 2006) Fast track patent application process; eliminate redundancy Partners: DE, SG, KR, AU, CA, JP, EPO, AU, UK  Patent Work Sharing Initiative (USPTO, KIPO, SIPO, EPO, JPO) Common document database (EPO) Common hybrid classification system (EPO) Common application format (JPO) Mutual machine translation (KIPO) Common search and examination support tools (USPTO) Common approach to sharing and documenting search strategies (USPTO) 5 Sources: EPO Patent Information News, WIPO press releases

Fun Facts  EPO publishes 2,000,000 th application in Dec  USPTO issues patent 7,500,000 in Feb.  USPTO publishes 2,000,000 th application in Feb.  Kia Silverbrook received 581 US patents in 2008 Founder, Silverbrook Research, Sydney, AU 400 employees Specialist in inkjet printer technology Issue fees = $438,655 (small entity fee) 2,500 US patents total,

CIPO  “Filings down minimally but payment of maintenance fees down substantially” – CEO Mary Carman, May 7  Patent Appeal Board rejects Amazon’s “one-click” patent application (CA A1)  Increase IP instruction at the university and college level  Canadian Patents Database Data available within one week of filing / issue PCT application data within 9 weeks of date of national entry Modified search interface Download biological sequence files 7

WIPO / PatentScope  Inventor and individual application address data suppressed Does not affect searches or search alerts Still printed on PDF  New kind codes A4Amended claims or statement A8republished front page data A9republished with corrections, alterations or supplements  Complete file contents of published applications (2006+)  Int. Application Status Report available  New 44-page guide to using patent information 8

USPTO  Record-breaking 495,095 applications in 2008 (  5.7 percent)  New Director…TBA  Patent reform? First to file v. first to invent 18 month publication – no opt out  MPEP 8 th edition, July 2008 rev.  Glossary of USPC terms 9 US – Method and system for assigning or creating a resource Assignee: IBM

New USPC Classifications  850, Scanning probe techniques and apparatus  73, Measuring and testing  506, Combinatorial chemistry technology: method, library, apparatus  374, Thermal measuring and testing US Animal skin and eye moisture and heat simulator 10

 Chemical structure searching via SureChem  Personal accounts now store: 10,000 documents in up to 20 folders  Titles added for cited references  CitePatents: encourage journalists and bloggers to link to patents mentioned in stories 11

EPO /  Beta SmartSearch One search box for searching inventor & applicant names, numbers, dates, keywords, IPC Advanced SmartSearch: Combine up to 21 terms in 23 fields  Download up to 100 pages  “My patents” stores 100 documents  Data for Cuba, Peru, Costa Rica and El Salvador  Chinese legal status back to 1985  New online helpdesk for Indian patents  New online tutorials and webinars  Espace EP : search four weeks of EP full text documents  Global Patent Index in 2009? 12

Claims Display Priority Claims Table 13

US provisional applications US applicationWO application US patent WO publication Full Text Patent Family Chart 14

Boliven Patents  Launched in Jan  Start-up company based in NYC  Search, analysis and valuation services  Networking site for inventors, IP attorneys, business development professionals  Patent database US, KR, EP, JP… 60 million documents 15

Boliven Patents Search Results 16

Analyze Search Results 17

 Website for patent searchers  Created by Landon IP patent and trademark search firm based in N. Virginia Supported in part by advertising  Quick comparison of patent search systems  Find prior art resources by technical field  Interactive patent coverage map  Wiki - Best practices in prior art searching 18

Other News  IP Australia launches AusPat, retires PatentSearch Bib data, 1970+; full text  Google Patents US applications added, six month delay  Patents.com launched in Sept Formerly Patentmonkey.com US, 1976+; EP 1998+? Supported by advertisements 19