PRESS RELEASE #99-30 September 17, 1999 Contact: Maria V. Hernandez Brigid Quinn 703-305-8341 PTO WEB SITE AMONG POPULAR SCIENCE MAGAZINE'S ELITE IN 1999 The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) web site (www.uspto.gov) has been named for the second year in a row to Popular Science Magazine's "50 Best of the Web." This annual award recognizes PTO's web site for its excellent science and technology content. Each month, Popular Science publishes Web Watch, a list of Internet sites that impress its editors. Once a year 50 of these sites are recognized as the best of the best with an annual award. PTO's award-winning site is featured in a special 9-page section in the September 1999 issue of the magazine. PTO's site is also listed in a directory that will appear on the Popular Science Web site (www.popsci.com/features/bow99/labtek.html). PTO's Web site was recently featured on GovSpot (http://www.govspot.com), the government information portal of the Web. The GovSpot editorial team found PTO's web site to be a top-notch tool for citizens, students, educators, businesses and government employees. The Dow Jones Business Directory ( http://www.bd.dowjones.com) also featured the PTO's web site in the Not New But Notable section recently on the front page of its web site. PTO's Web site had 6,916,404 hits in August 1999. In addition to the site's comprehensive collection of patent and trademark information, rules and regulations, PTO's site has the world's largest free on-line library of U.S. patents and pending and registered trademarks. This trove of science, technology and marketing creativity contains full searchable text and images of over 2 million patents, dating back to 1976 and over 1 million pending and registered trademarks. Patents are updated weekly and newly registered and pending trademarks are posted every 8 weeks. The PTO is the Commerce Department's user fee-funded bureau that administers laws relevant to granting patents and registering trademarks; advises the Secretary of Commerce, the President of the United States, and the Administration on patent, trademark and copyright protection; and advises the Secretary of Commerce, the President of the United States, and the Administration on the trade-related aspects of intellectual property. Nearly 6 million patents have been issued since the first patent in 1790. Last year PTO issued 155,000 patents and registered 106,000 trademarks. ###