It was inevitable that these popular iPhone smartphones and iPad touchscreen tablets would be used to search patents and trademarks. Patent and trademark apps have already started appearing in the iTunes store, some for free, with names like Apptorney IP, Patent Finder, and Patent Genius,

 see more Lolcats and funny pictures

 Now, an innovative law firm that specializes in the practice of intellectual property law, including patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, computer, franchise and unfair competition law, has launched the latest app for searching United States Patents and Trademarks, Banner & Witcoff’s IP Lawyer.

Banner & Witcoff's IP Lawyer is a free iPhone application providing iPhone-customized full search access to patents and trademarks issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office as well as corresponding assignments.

Banner & Witcoff's IP Lawyer also provides a comprehensive library with up-to-date Patent Local Rules for district courts throughout the country, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Federal Rules of Evidence, the Manual Patent Examination and Procedure, the U.S. Constitution, 37 C.F.R., links to international patent offices, and additional tools and resources.

Apple recently reported strong earnings for its third fiscal quarter of 2010, with strong iPhone, Mac and iPad sales helping revenue exceed analyst expectations. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, "The company in the quarter released the iPhone 4, which CEO Steve Jobs characterized as the most successful product launch in the company's history. Apple also launched the iPad during the third quarter, with shipments totaling 3.27 million units."

Sooner or later, we'll probably see IP.com's Intellectual Property Library and the Prior Art Database available as an app for iPhone and iPad, too. What do you think? Would that be cool, or what?

IP.com`s Intellectual Property Library is in the links of the Library of Congress Business References for Patents. This isn't the only way in which the Library of Congress collaborates with IP.com to record and preserve a permanent record of prior art, assuring that the modern, digital record of prior art is permanently recorded in the traditional print collections of the Library of Congress.

The IP.com Journal is the print and CD counterpart to the IP.com Prior Art Database. The IP.com Journal is published twice per month. It contains all disclosures digitally notarized and made available since the previous publication. It may also contain some disclosures which have been marked to appear in the print journal prior to being made available online. The IP.com Journal is just one of the methods that IP.com employs to ensure that disclosures published to our databases are permanent and forever available. Each edition of the journal is distributed to libraries and law offices around the world .

The IP.com Journal contains a table of contents of included disclosures, printed summary information for each disclosure, an index of keywords, and one or more CD-ROM disks containing each complete disclosure along with its digital notarization record.

Most searchers access Prior Art data from the website or from a periodic data-feed. However, IP.com also distributes physical copies of IP.com Journal to various locations, including the Library of Congress.

The Prior Art Database is a vehicle for defensively publishing ideas (often as "technical disclosures") in order to prevent someone else from patenting them. It assures an invention's novelty is established around the world.

The Prior Art Database is the venue of choice for the world's most innovative corporations, including IBM, Siemens, Motorola and many others. It allows both individuals and corporations to publish and search reliably, with the assurance that published technical disclosures are part of the permanent record of prior art in such established library collections with the added security of a digital notational record, its "fingerprint"of the time and date of public disclosure of every innovation published in IP.com's Prior Art Database.

For example, here's some recent IBM Redbooks publications.

IBM Redbooks publications are developed and published by the IBM International Technical Support Organization (ITSO). The ITSO develops and delivers skills, technical know-how, and materials to IBM technical professionals, Business Partners, clients, and the marketplace in general.

The ITSO works with IBM Divisions and Business Partners in the process of developing IBM Redbooks, Redpapers, Web Docs, workshops, and other materials. The ITSO is part of the ibm.com organization within IBM Sales & Distribution.

The ITSO's value-add information products address product, platform, and solution perspectives. They explore integration, implementation, and operation of realistic client scenarios that include PeopleSoft, Linux, Windows, SAP, Oracle, and others.

IBM Redbooks are the ITSO's core product. They typically provide positioning and value guidance, installation and implementation experiences, typical solution scenarios, and step-by-step "how-to" guidelines. They often include sample code and other support materials that are also available as downloads from this site.

Redbooks are available as hardcopy books, in IBM Redbooks CD-ROM collections, and on the Internet.

IBM Redbooks is on Facebook. You can also follow IBM's Twitter feed for Redbooks @IBMRedbooks and you can follow IP.com on Twitter @ipdotcom, as well.

The addition of IBM Redbooks to the IP.com Intellectual Property Library is an effective extension of the ongoing collaboration between IP.com and IBM to make their non-patent literature and technical disclosures easily accessible to patent examiners and inventors everywhere.

Since 2002, IBM's Technical Disclosure Bulletin and all its technical disclosures since 1958 have been published as part of IP.com's Prior Art Database. IBM technical disclosures (from 1958 through today) are available for a fee through IP.com. Documents can be purchased through the following: IP.com Prior Art Database. As indicated on the IBM website: "They are also kept on file with Patent & Trademark Offices and U.S. Government Depository Libraries. Searching/copying services are NOT provided by any PTO or Government office."

Patenting is extremely expensive and most companies have more innovative ideas than budgeted patent resources. Who can afford to patent everything? On the other hand, who can afford to let competitors patent technology used in your products and services? Worse yet, how do you know, years in advance, which patentable ideas you will need for your products and services? Defensive publishing is a low cost way to prevent competitors from obtaining patents and protect your freedom to practice.

Technical Disclosures

Patents are incredibly useful tools in that they give the inventor the right to exclude others from making, using or selling the patented invention. However, this exclusive right must be enforced. If someone is using an invention for which you have a patent, you can sue for infringement to reclaim damages, as well as force the offending party to stop. Unless you initiate the infringement proceedings (or the threat of infringement proceedings), there is nothing to make the offending party stop using your innovation. In essence, patents only have power if you are willing to stand up in court to defend them.

The problem is that obtaining patents is not a trivial process. Legal fees, filing fees, maintenance fees, and lost time by your R&D staff can be quite costly. Spending this kind of money on a powerful innovation that can return hundreds or thousands of times the investment is clearly worth it. Yet, only a small portion of the items from a typical invention review qualify as such. More often, the majority of ideas that result from an invention review are good ideas that, for one reason or another, do not end up patented.

Why?

Typically, there are a number of inventions on which you may already have partial patent protection. Inventions that improve upon an existing patented invention are good examples of this. Another reason you may not wish to obtain patent protection on good ideas, is that you don't expect to ever gain back the money that would be spent pursuing the patent. This is highly typical for inventions that improve the operation of some aspect of your business, but is not part of your general business strategy. (A computer chip manufacturer that finds a better way of packaging would be a good example. Packaging sales are not part of the core business, and most likely patents in this area would never be pursued.)

So what happens to the innovation I don't patent?

Typically, nothing. You are free to use your invention without a patent ... until someone else patents the idea. That's when the problem occurs. At this point, they could force you into paying licensing fees, or to stop using the innovation altogether. In essence, forcing you to stop using an idea you had first, but never patented.

If I had the idea first, doesn't that give me the right to use it?

Unfortunately, having the idea first doesn't do anything for you. The only way to prevent another patent from issuing, or defeating one that has already issued, is by being able to prove not only that the idea already existed, but that it was available to the public as well. This is where technical disclosure comes in. Innovation you do not patent is at risk of being patented by others. Publishing that innovation establishes a clear trail of evidence that you had this idea, and made it available to the public. Therefore, it should be considered "general knowledge" by the patent examiners, and not be allowed to be patented. In effect, allowing you to retain your right to use your own innovation, without the hassle and expense of obtaining patent protection.

Here's how technical disclosure works.

As Eric Lane, a patent attorney at Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego, where he is in the Intellectual Property and Climate Change & Clean Technologies practice groups, writes on his Green Patent Blog:

One hope with these initiatives is that they will facilitate transfer of green technologies, making it easier for green patent owners and prospective licensees to hook up.

Another is that the increased transparency regarding owners of green patents will aid negotiations in the international climate change treaty talks.

In any event, more green patent information can only help green tech innovators and implementers.

Readers of the Green Patent Blog might also be interested in searching some of the greentech topics in IP.com's Intellectual Property Library, such as:

• Reducing greenhouse gases
• How to turn wind into energy
• Innovations in fuel efficient cars

Speaking of fuel efficient cars, a recent post about the BLUECAR eco-mark on the Green Patent Blog asks, "Is Blue the new Green?"

The eTablet is developing into a major product of Kent Displays, Inc. Based upon the bistable cholesteric technology, the tablet is a writing surface in which an image can be drawn with the touch or light pressure of an untethered stylus such as pointed object or even the finger or finger nail. The unique feature of the eTablet is that the written image is instantly erased with the push of a button and a new image written. Kent Displays, Inc. has issued patents (US Patents 6,104,448, 6,061,107, 5,453,863 and 5,437,811) and patent applications (US Patent Applications 11/762,174 and 12/217,158) on file basic to the eTablet for two different modes of operation.

Searching IP.com's Library, can one find subsequent patent applications and technical disclosures by Kent Displays Inc. that might indicate features that could possibly be included in future evolutions of the eTablet?

Multiple color writing tablet (05-Feb-2009)

Selectively erasable electronic writing tablet (16-Apr-2009)

Handwritten Messaging with the eTablet (26-Aug-2009)

Who knows? One can dream of future applications that IMPROV Electronics might bring to market with the name and trademark Boogie Board.

For the latest information, visit myboogieboard.com on the web and follow @Boogie_Board on Twitter.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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."

Search Patents and Non-Patent Literature - IP.com

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Funny stuff. But if you're serious and want to protect your intellectual property there are serious tools.

The IP.com Prior Art Database is the venue of choice for the world's most innovative corporations, including IBM, Siemens, Motorola and many others. It allows both individuals and corporations to publish and search reliably and affordably.

In other news of interest to those following @ArticleOne, Gene Quinn at IP Watchdog reports that the Former Head of Patents at MSFT & IBM, Marshall Phelps, recently joined the Board of Directors at Article One Partners. As we have, you can follow Marshall Phelps @MarshallPhelps on Twitter. And, of course, you can follow IP.com on Twitter @ipdotcom, as well.

Publishing some of your company's innovations can protect the creativity that keeps the company going.

Intellectual property (IP) has long been a mainstay at companies that turn out the newest and the next "best" products. As a result, the race for innovation has become a mad dash to the patent office. New companies need to make their mark early or risk getting left behind. And established companies must maintain and build upon their current IP portfolios to remain contenders in this innovation race. Defensive publishing lets companies ranging from start-ups to major corporations adroitly manage IP without exhausting valuable time and resources.

By definition, defensive publishing is the practice of placing innovation into the public domain. Although the tactic is not new, when used hand in hand with patents and trade secrets, it lets companies efficiently build and maintain competitive IP portfolios.

Traditionally, patents have dominated companies' IP strategies. But patenting is expensive. Companies spend, on average, $12,000 to $15,000 to file one patent application in the U.S. Filing this same application in key locations throughout the world can cost up to five times that figure. Is it wise for any company, no matter how rich, to invest resources and rely on just patents to protect their innovative ideas? This is where defensive publishing steps in.

Defensive publication protects a company's freedom to use its innovation in its products and services. And most defensive publication tactics are easy to implement. For example, if your company develops and patents an innovation vital to its business, and later develops incremental improvements or new uses of that innovation, those later developments are not protected by the initial patents. Patenting every new improvement or new use could be cost prohibitive. But if your company doesn't patent it, a competitor who independently discovers the incremental improvements or new uses might patent them. This could create far more expensive problems for your company in terms of litigation, downstream product redesign, royalty payments, and lost time to market. So how do you protect your freedom to practice without investing huge dollars in patents?

Trade secrets are one option. However, they are not always a realistic way to protect your freedom to practice in today's business and technological environment. In some instances, trade secrets are more dangerous than protective. Employees are hop-ping from company to company more rapidly than ever before. With the advanced searching and data-mining technologies in the market, competitive intelligence has become more effective than ever. Which leads one to ask: Are my trade secrets really secret? Anyone who has been involved in trade-secret litigation knows that specific actions must be taken to turn company secrets into trade secrets. Managers who think they have trade-secret protection, but don't, are at the greatest risk of having their innovations patented by competitors.

Defensive publishing alleviates some of the risks associated with trade secrets. By breaking trade secrets into actual steps and components, companies can safely publish selected pieces of that trade secret. This successfully blocks competitors' patents without disclosing the trade secret itself.

Defensive publishing offers many individually tailored publication tactics. The most obvious one is to use publishing defensively, protecting already established intellectual property portfolios. Two ways to do this are the noncore publication tactic and the conference proceedings publication tactic.

A business-savvy company understands the need for continuous growth and development. However, no company has unlimited financial resources. Though new innovations are a key to many companies' success, not every innovation will be patentable. Because of the costs, companies need to discriminate in choosing what to patent. Only innovations vital to a company's business strategy warrant such a financial investment. But, if a company decides not to patent an innovation, one of its competitors might. Using noncore publication prevents this by placing noncore innovations in the public domain. This protects the creating company's freedom to practice in noncore areas of business while at the same time letting worldwide patent offices search and find this prior art.

Another seemingly obvious defensive tactic is for a company to publish its conference proceedings. When a company attends a conference and gives a presentation, any innovation discussed may be considered prior art, thus providing the basis for rejecting a competitor's patent application. However, unless patent examiners are present at the conference, they may never know of this prior art. By publishing the conference proceedings, a company ensures that the information is available for search by patent examiners.

Contrary to its name, defensive publishing can also be a valuable offensive business strategy. It's not enough to just maintain your IP portfolio. To be a player in today's business world, companies must aggressively build on their portfolios. Publication tactics can help companies combat the competition.

The Pied Piper tactic, a recent approach in IP protection, involves publishing technical details of a pending patent application. Because pending patent applications are kept confidential while in the patent office (for 18 months, with exceptions), a company would use this strategy hoping other companies adopt the technology before the patent's issue. Once the published technology is adopted by a company and built into its products or services, that company becomes the perfect licensing target when the patent is finally issued.

Another offensive tactic is disseminating misinformation to confuse competitors. Typically publications and patents are an excellent source of competitive intelligence. Competitors can use the information to determine the direction and trends of new products and technology. By publishing noncore technology in the mix with core technology, a company can throw off competitors.

The benefits of publishing information on innovations are evident. So how does a company go about publishing its work?

Companies can take the traditional route of working with journals, both paid and academic. Academic journals are an acceptable option but publication is not guaranteed. Even if the work is accepted, the timeliness of publication is up to the editors' discretion. This means that when working with an academic journal, a company has little control over when the material reaches the public domain if, in fact, it ever does.

Another traditional option is to partner with a select group of paper-based journals designed strictly for defensive publishing. Then publication is guaranteed. But even this has its drawbacks. For one, publication is not immediate. There is a delay between the time an innovation is submitted for publication and when it actually reaches print. What's more, the point of publishing an innovation is to provide meaningful access to the patent examiners. Many journals do not offer searchable electronic indices, so busy patent examiners will probably never see them, essentially defeating the publications' purpose.

The latest option for companies is to publish over the Internet, posting information on the corporate Web site. The assumption is doing so puts the information in the public domain. However, this is not necessarily the case. There are a number of legal requirements as to what actually qualifies as a defensive publication. Generally speaking, most sites don't have the proper safeguards in place that can act as critical references downstream in the event of a trial.

Another consideration when posting on the Internet is accessibility to patent examiners. With a workload that has grown by an estimated 75% since 1992, patent examiners don't have time to search thousands of company Web sites. Realistically speaking, innovations posted on individual corporate Web sites will most likely never be found.

The most recent option is a central Web resource designed solely for defensive publishing. The first site to offer such services is IP.com. With security measures in place to assure document retention and authenticity, IP.com lets companies publish innovations via the Internet at low cost and in a small fraction of the time it takes paper-based sources. In addition to publishing services, the site offers a globally accessible database dedicated to defensive publications that is visible to all patent examiners. A complete overview of defensive publishing tactics is available at ip.com.

In this age of research and development, it is the intellectual property portfolio that makes or breaks a company's success. A well-rounded IP strategy can be a company's strongest weapon in these times of patent wars. With the help of the Internet, defensive publishing is becoming a highly recognized and respected alternative to more traditional IP management techniques. Using defensive publishing alongside such practices as patenting and trade secrets helps companies enhance and maintain formidable IP portfolios.

You might also want ot check out some of the currently featured articles and editor's picks on Machine Design. Interesting stuff.

Dan Ballard of Sequoia Counsel, who's on Twitter @Ballard_IP was quick to pick up on a tweet by @nishantmodak pointing to an oldie but goodie -- an article in Machine Design written by IP.com's CEO, Tom Colson, in 2001 titled "Defensive publishing: Protect your intellectual property".

We don't know what's more surprising, that patent attorneys and others interested in protecting intellectual property were on Twitter on New Year's Day commenting on an article on defensive publishing, or that we were on Twitter on the holiday, too, following their conversations.

It seems that social media doesn't take holidays off.

Recently, the Commerce Department’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced in this press release that the Government of India has granted the agency’s patent examiners access to a new digital database containing a compilation of traditional Indian knowledge.  Access to the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) is important for both India and the United States to prevent misappropriation of traditional knowledge.

The new database, developed jointly by India’s Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Department of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH), includes over 200,000 traditional medicine formulations on Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha comprising 30 million pages.  The TKDL contains text-searchable English-language translations of these sources, permitting USPTO examiners to search thousands of years of India’s accumulated traditional knowledge.  The TKDL also contains translations into French, German, Japanese and Spanish, from these sources, originally written in Hindi, Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and Urdu.

This database will be an important addition to the growing array of search tools on traditional knowledge from around the world that is already available to USPTO examiners. These tools include dictionaries, formularies, handbooks, and historical or classical works, as well as databases such as the TKDL. USPTO examiners use these tools to help prevent the patenting, and thereby misappropriation, of existing traditional knowledge.

China Intellectual Property Business 2009 ("CIPB 2009") is organized by Global Leaders Institute, which issued a press release today announcing the conference. It will take place on November 18-19, 2009 at the Shanghai Marriott Hotel Hongqiao.

 

 

This conference is mainly focused on Intellectual Property transaction issues, including IP strategies, IP portfolio management, diversified IP transaction methods, IP valuation approaches and database applications.

Unlike other IP conferences focused on legal issues, this event deals more with the strategic concerns within a company rather than just protection issues. Not only are IP counsels and patent counsels being invited to this event, corporate CEOs, Vice Presidents and General Counsels are all expected to join this exciting conference.

Director of SIPA, Mr. Guoqiang Lv, will make the opening address for this event and deliver a presentation as the curtain raiser for CIPB 2009. Former Supreme Court Judge, Mr. Jiang Zhipei will also deliver a speech on the current IP business background, especially in China.

120 companies from different industries will join this event. Among them, this conference has gathered over 30 Global IP Leaders and IP Strategists to brainstorm the IP strategies and transaction issues in this booming China market, including, Philips IP&S, Microsoft, Nokia, SAP, Bosch, Sanofi-Aventis, Agilent Technologies, Alibaba, Alcatel Lucent Shanghai Bell, and TSMC. Leading Chinese firms will also present on site, including ZTE, BYD and TCL.

Thomson Reuters, IP.com, TechInsights, Finnegan, Property Corp. and RPX Corporation have engaged this event as its honored sponsors. Mr. David Liu, the Managing Director of China from Thomson Reuters will make a toast during the first day's lunch.

This conference is problem solution driven and each company who has the need to extract more value from their IP assets will find a suitable solution for them and find potential business partners either during the conference or after the conference. Hope to see you there.

You can log on the event website for more information: http://www.cipbusiness.com

If you're attending CIPB 2009, as well, or would like to get together while I'm in China, please contact me by email tcolson [at] ip.com either in advance or during the conference, and we'll set something up.

PATINEX offers insight into various facade of IP information and latest cutting edge developments of new tools and services for protecting, enforcing and exploiting a company's IP.

Conference host, Jung-Sik Koh, Commissioner, Korean Intellectual Property Office has welcomed us back again this year, and we're having very productive meetings here and enjoying the conference program.

This year, we're featuring IP.com's InnovationQ enterprise solution for organizations with significant portfolios of intellectual property to manage throughout the IP life-cycle.

Also of great interest at this conference is the Prior Art Database, the world's leading repository and registry of prior art.

The IP.com Prior Art Database is a unique database dedicated to the publication of technical disclosure documents. The IP.com Prior Art Database contains content that cannot be found anywhere else, and is an essential source of non-patent prior art data for intellectual property professionals, research and development (R&D) staff, corporate library staff, and individual inventors wishing to research prior art. The IP.com Prior Art Database is home to a wide array of technical disclosures from many Fortune 500 companies. While many publish anonymously to prevent competitive intelligence, you will also find many disclosures published with full authorship information from innovative companies such as IBM, Motorola, and Siemens. The IP.com Prior Art Database is also the exclusive location for new IBM-TDB (Technical Disclosure Bulletin) documents on the Web.

Recently, the Korean Intellectual Propery Office (KIPO) showed its leadership in fast-tracking green patent applications. 

On 1 October 2009, the Korean Patent Office (KIPO) launched its "super speed examination system" for green technology. The system is available for green technologies that minimise the discharge of pollutants, as well as those which have received funding or authentication for green growth. Applicants can apply for super speed examination by requesting a prior art search from one of three agencies authorised to conduct such searches on behalf of KIPO (the Korea Institute of Patent Information (KIPI), WIPS Co. Ltd. or IP Solution Co. Ltd.) and submitting the results of the search to KIPO.

Details of the application procedure for super speed examination and the documents required, etc. are posted on KIPO's website in the News section (article no. 688, published on 2 October 2009): http://www.kipo.go.kr

As Executive Vice President of IP.com and head of the company's Asia Pacific operations, I look forward to working with KIPO and other leading governmental agencies and business organizations to increase efficiencies in management of patent systems. Look for IP.com in the exhibition hall at PATINEX 2009, or contact me personally by email jkong@ip.com at your convenience, and see how we can help.