Press Release #99-11 April 19, 1999 SECRETARY DALEY TO ANNOUNCE FREE INTERNET ACCESS TO 20 MILLION PAGES OF U.S. PATENT AND TRADEMARK DATA The Secretary of Commerce, William M. Daley, will unveil a new Internet database containing text and images of 2 million patents and over 1 million registered and pending trademarks. This fully searchable database is available at www.uspto.gov., which is the Web site of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). The patent information contains the text and images of all patents dating back to 1976. The trademark data represents all pending and registered trademarks dating back to the mid-1800s. The more than 20 million document pages in the database comprise 2 terabytes of modern-day science and technology, and more than 100 years of marketing creativity. Secretary Daley will be joined by inventors doing work in cancer research and in computer software. Patents issued to these inventors will be used to demonstrate database search capabilities. Event: Announcement and demonstration of searchable text and images of patent and trademark database on PTO’s web site. Host: U.S. Secretary of Commerce William M. Daley Date: Wednesday, April 21, 1999 Time: 9:30 a.m. Place: U.S. Department of Commerce , 14th and Constitution Avenue, NW , Room 4830 , Washington, DC CONTACTS: Brigid Quinn /Maria Victoria Hernandez (703)305-8341 ###