Securing Innovation : Business Blog of IP.com about Intellectual Property Search, Patents, Trademarks, Copyright, and Trade Secrets

Search the Intellectual Property Library, a free international database of patent and patent-related publications. Its goal is to encourage worldwide access to resources where innovators can easily locate and explore Intellectual Property (IP) including patents, technologies, and related art. The Library's collections contain an ever increasing number of international patent databases as well as carefully selected non-patent literature (including our own Prior Art Database).

The Library introduces some unique concepts in free online patent searching:

• It is the first free access website to actively combine patent and non-patent prior art searching into a single resource.
• In addition to a classic full text search engine, it also offers access to a sophisticated semantic search engine, creating unique abilities to rapidly locate related art.
• It is the first website outside the People's Republic of China to enable free access to SIPO patent data.

The Library is brought to you by IP.com, a Manning & Napier company. IP.com's first product, the Prior Art Database, launched in September 2000. The Prior Art Database provides companies with a fast, effective, and centralized outlet for publishing and searching technical disclosures. Since its inception, the Prior Art Database has become a world-leading outlet for defensively disclosing research and innovative art.

IP.com's charter is to provide our customers with tools and solutions to more effectively manage their intellectual property and innovations. We have successfully and repeatedly developed numerous IP-related solutions that are trusted by some of the world's largest and most innovative companies.

Try searching for something interesting in the search box below.

Here's some Interesting Queries to start your journey. We welcome your feedback and encourage you to visit often to see what new collections or interesting features we've added to the Library.

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"Oil and water don't mix. Let us separate it for you." That's the message Kevin Costner brought to Capitol Hill this week, as the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee  held hearings into the BP oil leak/spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana.

Kevin Costner explained his company's machine and its early development and patent history.

David Meikrantz's invention that is the foundation for this new machine was a method of recovering hazardous waste from phenolic resin filters that received  US Patent Number 4995916 in 1991.

Taxpayers paid for the early development of a liquid-liquid separator technology, licensed and patented from the Department of Energy (DOE) and Idaho National Laboratories (INL), a government owned, private contractor operated facility, in 1993. Originally developed to assist in nuclear fuel reprocessing, the machine was then made available to the private sector to improve upon the licensed patent. Today the technology represents one of the laboratory’s highly successful transfers of technology, which makes the patent unique and of particular interest for the government and U.S. citizens.

The foundation of our CINC technology was created over 30 years ago and has been used by the Department of Energy (DOE) to recover valuable metal resources through a process of solvent extraction. In 1993 I was awarded a Technology Transfer from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for a liquid solvent extraction technology, which we believed had the potential to be scaled up and commercialized in the fight against oil spills. Dave Meikrantz, a scientist working for DOE, and the original inventor of the technology, came on board as the Director of Technology at Costner Industries (CINC), my newly formed private company.

In 1998, inventor David Meikrantz received a  US Patent 5762800 for a Centrifugal Separator and that patent was assigned to Costner Industries of Carson City, NV.

You can read more about Kevin Costner's Ocean Therapy Solutions on the corporate website for CINC Industries, which manufactures the centrifugal separator.

As they say, "The time to talk became the time to act."

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A typical Google query takes less than 1/2 second, but involves quite a few steps before you see the most relevant results. Here's how it all works.

Google Patent Search enables users to search the full text of the U.S. patent corpus and find patents that interest them.

All patents available through Google Patent Search come from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Patents issued in the United States are public domain government information, and images of the entire database of U.S. patents are readily available online via the USPTO website.

Using the same technology that powers Google Book Search, Google has converted the entire image database of U.S. patents into a format that’s easy to search. You can search the full text of U.S. patents from the Google Patent Search homepage, or visit the Advanced Patent Search page to search by criteria like patent number, inventor, and filing date.

Google and the USPTO have entered into an agreement to make bulk patent and trademark information available to the public at no charge.

Earlier this month, Under Secretary of Commerce and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) David Kappos announced that the USPTO has entered into a no-cost, two-year agreement with Google to make bulk electronic patent and trademark public data available to the public in bulk form. Under this agreement, the USPTO is providing Google with existing bulk, electronic files, which Google will host without modification for the public free of charge.

Director Kappos said the USPTO does not currently have the technical capability to provide this public information in a bulk machine readable format that is desired by the intellectual property (IP) community. This arrangement is to serve as a bridge as the USPTO develops an acquisition strategy which will allow the USPTO to enter into a contract with a contractor to retrieve and distribute USPTO patent and trademark bulk public data. The contractor will be capable of acquiring this bulk data and providing it to the public.

“The USPTO is committed to providing increased transparency as called for by the President’s Open Government Initiative. An important element of that transparency is making valuable public patent and trademark information more widely available in a bulk form so companies and researchers can download it for analysis and research,” said Under Secretary Kappos. “Because the USPTO does not currently have the technical capability to offer the data in bulk form from our own Web site, we have teamed with Google to provide the data in a way that is convenient and at no cost for those who desire it.”

“We’re happy to work with the USPTO to make patent and trademark data more accessible and useful,” said Jon Orwant, Engineering Manager for Google. “It’s important to make public data easier to gather and analyze. And when the data is free, that’s even better.”

Until now, the USPTO’s public data in bulk form has been provided solely as a fee-based service. The USPTO estimates that nearly ten terabytes of information will be made available through Google.

This has been described by intellectual property professionals as "good news and bad news." Good news that all this patent and trademark information previously available for a fee is now freely accessible. Bad news that it's only  available in "bulk" form, which is less useful than it might otherwise be. It's also limited to United States Patent and Trademark data. So far, so good.

IP.com provides companies and intellectual property professionals with tools and solutions to more effectively manage their IP and innovations. Whether your objective is searching for patents or prior art, defensively publishing your innovations, obtaining research prior to applying for a patent or for other IP-related reasons, or realizing improved IP processes, IP.com has the right solution.

Our Intellectual Property Library website is a free international database of patent and patent-related publications. Our goal is to encourage worldwide access to resources where innovators can explore and understand patents, technologies, and related art. The database contains an ever increasing array of international patents (as published by the authorities) as well as non-patent literature (including our own Prior Art Database). The site features such things as full text and English translation searching along with unique "more-like-this" capabilities.

Start by Searching the Library or visiting the Library's Resource Center.

Like Google, IP.com's Intellectual Property Library is free.

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IP.com provides companies with the tools and solutions to more effectively manage their intellectual property and innovations.

Free Patent and Non-Patent Literature Database

Our Intellectual Property Library website is a free international database of patent and patent-related publications. Our goal is to encourage worldwide access to resources where innovators can explore and understand patents, technologies, and related art. The database contains an ever increasing array of international patents (as published by the authorities) as well as non-patent literature (including our own Prior Art Database). The site features such things as full text and English translation searching along with unique "more-like-this" capabilities.

Start by Searching the Library or visiting the Library's Resource Center.

Defensive Publishing

Our initial product, the Prior Art Database, was created to provide companies with a fast, effective, and centralized outlet for publishing and searching technical disclosures. In addition to electronic publication, the Prior Art Database collection is also published in print in our semi-monthly publication, The IP.com Journal, which is distributed to libraries and patent office worldwide.

Since its inception, the Prior Art Database has continued to grow, attracting many high profile clients such as IBM, General Electric, Motorola, Abbott Laboratories, and Eastman Kodak (to name a few). More importantly, it is searched and cited daily by patent examiners worldwide.

Learn more about our Prior Art Database.

Patent and Prior Art Research

Our Intellectual Property Search Service is a recognized leader in providing innovative companies with high quality patent searching and analysis. As veteran engineers and scientists with decades of industry and intellectual property experience, we have accumulated knowledge and employ a proven process for managing each search project that enables us to find the most relevant information and deliver timely, accurate, and concise results.

Learn more about our IP Search Service.

Personal Intellectual Property Protection

Our Creative Registry is a web-based registry that allows you to upload your documents and creative work for legal safeguarding. IP.com digitally fingerprints and date-stamps your work while placing it into a private archive for your personal access. IP.com then publishes the fingerprint and date into the public domain as a testament to the existence of your work. Your actual document is never exposed to anyone else, yet you have irrefutable proof of its content at the precise time it was safeguarded.

Learn more about the Creative Registry.

Innovation Repository and Workflow Software

Our InnovationQ software system provides solutions for managing the information, records, and processes associated with innovation and IP. InnovationQ is a software framework which delivers functions including sophisticated workflows, collaborative environments, and legally safeguarded document management. Utilizing this framework, we create configurable modules that provide integrated company-specific solutions. InnovationQ allows companies to improve their processes and derive new and additional value from their innovation and IP assets.

Learn more about InnovationQ.

Many corporations and organizations see the advantages that working with IP.com brings. We offer a variety of affiliate relations to help those companies more easily offer IP.com's services to in-house staff or as an added value to their clients.

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It takes just seconds to put an HTML code snippet in an appropriate location on your website, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily access patent searching.

IP.com designed the Search Box HTML code to work with the default style for forms on your blog or website. This means the presentation of the "Search Patents" textbox might appear a little different on your page than what you see below. If you like, you are welcome to adjust the style to assure the best visual integration with your site.

Please try out the active search box above to see how it works and, in the comments below, let us know what you think.

This page contains information on how to add one of these Intellectual Property Library Search Boxes to your website or blog. Having our Search Box available enables your site's visitors to easily search patents and IP.,com's selected non-patent literature.

Be sure to explore the More-Like-This feature of this unique search engine for patents, prior art and non-patent literature in this growing library.

This page contains a variety of links which showcase queries into the Library. If you are interested in exploring, consider beginning with one of these queries, selecting a document of interest, and then clicking on More Like This. You could start a journey into our Intellectual Property Library that will surprise and delight you. Enjoy!

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It has been reported that the iPad, described by Apple CEO and Founder Steve Jobs as magical, has sold over two million in the first two months since the innovative tablet was launched. What's all the excitement? Japanese magician Uchida Shinya demonstrates.

YouTube video seen on Mashable

You can even search for patents and prior art on an iPad. Is there an app for that?

According to PC Magazine, "it remains to be seen just how many apps from Apple's App Store have been downloaded by the millions of iPad users thus far--around the one-million-sold mark, Apple announced that iPad owners had been busy nabbing more than 12 million apps and 1.5 million eBooks."

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