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UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE PUBLIC SEARCH FACILITY (PSF)
SEARCHING PATENTS AND TRADEMARKS
VOL. IX No. 1, April 2008
Public User Meetings are held the third Wednesday of every month at 2 p.m. Meeting notices and minutes are available by linking to Products and Services from the USPTO home page at www.uspto.gov. Send topic suggestions for future newsletters to psf@uspto.gov.
Search Facilities
- Operations
- News
- Personnel
TRADEMARK SEARCH FACILITY CLOSURE
The USPTO Trademark Search Facility in the South Tower will cease operations at 5 p.m. on Friday, September 5, 2008. After this date, trademark information resources will be accessible at the USPTO's Public Search Facility in Alexandria, Virginia.
COMING SOON!
Mark your calendar for USPTO Community Day, Thursday, May 22, 2008! Please plan to drop by the Customer Information Services exhibit.
PUBLIC TRAINING COURSES AVAILABLE MONTHLY
Training is recommended before using the on-line examiner search systems such as Trademark X-Search; Patent Examiner Assisted Search Tool (EAST) and Patent Web-based Examiner Search Tool (WEST). To find out when the training courses are offered each month or to register for a public training course, please visit the Public Search Facility Reference Desk or call 571-272-3275. There is a non-refundable fee of $25.00 per class. Training course information is also available at www.uspto.gov, just click menu item “Products and Services”; and then click “About CIS”.
Search Collections
- Digital
- Microfilm
TM REGISTRATION WORD MICROFILM COLLECTION UPDATE
The Trademark Registered Word microfilm collection is now complete. The entire collection of classified Trademark Registration Word documents is now available on microfilm located on the first floor of the Public Search Facilities at the Alexandria campus.
TM REGISTRATIONS WITH DESIGN ELEMENTS MICROFILM COLLECTION UPDATE
Registered documents with design elements classified in the following categories are now available for viewing at the Alexandria campus: Art, Music-Mythology-Building & Scenery-Letters 1, 2, and 3. The last group of Registered documents to be microfilmed in September includes the documents in the Human, Human Portraits, Checkers, Grotesque Animals, Clubs Spades and Fleur de Lis Certification categories.
CORRECTED OR AMENDED TRADEMARK REGISTRATIONS
The numerical collection of corrected or amended Trademark registrations has been relocated to the Public Search Facility in Alexandria, VA from the Trademark Search Facility. The updated registration certificates (URC's) have been relocated to the windowed area overlooking the Atrium on the 1st floor near the index card cabinets. A copy is also attached to the original Trademark registration in the Trademark Bound Volume collection which allows the viewing of the original and current status information at the same time.
EARLY UNNUMBERED PATENTS
Early unnumbered patents (or X-patents) are patents that were issued by USPTO between 1790 (year of first patent issued) through 1836. Also referred to as "name and date patents", this grouping of nearly 10,000 patents were mostly destroyed in the fire of December 15, 1836. While a committee was formed and funded by Congress in 1837 to help replace these records, efforts to locate and reconstruct this collection are ongoing to this day. Almost 20 early unnumbered patents have been identified in the past several years by researchers using archives in various libraries, patents that have been lost to the agency up until these discoveries. And another recent effort triggered by several librarians in Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries identified over 500 patents that were included on a set of microfilm that had not yet been added to the patent image database. Staff in the Public Search Facility which owned the microfilm were integral in an effort to obtain copies for uploading to the patent image database. As a result of these various efforts, an additional new grouping of approximately 500 early unnumbered patents is now available on the USPTO web site. They are retrievable by document number or classification.
Search Interfaces
- Structure
- Capabilities
- Modules
DERWENT DATABASE WORLD PATENTS INDEX ABSTRACTS UPDATE
During February 2008 additional Derwent database enhancements were deployed. The capability to use commonly constructed query terms and an expanded capability to search the IPC Reform data are a few of these enhancements. Details about these Derwent database improvements are available in the handout entitled “Derwent Enhancements available through East” located at each On-Line Assistance Desk.
X-SEARCH ENHANCEMENTS
Have you used X-Search recently? The enhancements deployed earlier this year allow you to sort results in the “Hit list” by the serial or registration number and you can create an alphabetical listing by sorting the mark field. A detailed handout outlining the changes is available at each On-Line Assistance Desk.
Search Topics
- Hints
- Results
- Reminders
PATENT QUICK REFERENCE GUIDES
Pick up current copies of Quick Reference Guides to assist you in searching electronic patent information accessed through the UPWS applications PubEAST and PubWEST. Guides for searching European Patent Office and Japanese Patent Office patent information, as well as other online foreign patent information are accessible through UPWS applications.
Public Information Services
United States Patent and Trademark Office
P. O. Box 1450
Alexandria, VA 22313-1450
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