PIUG Space Blog

ORBIT Beta is available! Discover and find the new, improved and far more efficient features of ORBIT.

Go to beta.orbit.com using your existing logon.

Would like a demo? Contact help@questel.com

- Re-organised General Interface for clearer view
- New Specialist Assignee Search Interface added
- New Data field Option 
- Downloadable legal status timeline
- Quick search box with integrated Search history
- Updated Patent Copies interface 
- Forward Citation Graphs and new citation and co-assignment
- Added Business information
- One click landscape map download
- Data rule upgrade
- Filter your search with the new IP Business Intelligence Filter
- Select what you want to see and add information with the ‘Color By’ Control 
- Custom Filter your search choosing fields to be displayed in results list
- Keyword highlighting for non Latin languages
- German original language full text applications

Slide presentations from the two workshops by the USPTO and EPO, which were given on Thursday, May 2, after the PIUG Annual Conference, have been provided by the patent offices and are open to all interested parties to read and share:

AIA Workshop by the USPTO: "First Inventor to File Final Rules and Guidelines"

CPC Workshop by USPTO and EPO

Members-only access to the PIUG 2013 Annual Conference Plenary and Business Meeting presentations is described elsewhere.

Tom Wolff,
PIUG Wikimaster, wikimaster @ piug.org

The two INPADOC files on STN, INPADOCDB and INPAFAMDB, offer a great variety of patent analysis options. While INPADOCDB provides an optimized environment for application-based patent statistics, the patent family database INPAFAMDB supports statistics looking at the number of inventions. This e-Seminar exemplifies techniques to perform statistical analysis in both databases and answers fundamental questions like “which parameters to choose for which patent analysis”. Examples also illustrate how legal status information could help in statistical analysis. Typical questions are:

■ Which are the top companies in a certain technology area?

■How do the filing activities of the top companies compare in major patent countries?

■How can I determine the grant rate in major patent countries?

■How long does company A maintain patent protection in particular countries?

■How innovative is company A in comparison with company B over the last ten years?

■Who is opposing patents of company A and whose patents is company A opposing?

This intermediate session will be of interest to new and experienced STN searchers, providing a variety of tips and advice for effective patent analysis in the INPADOC files on STN.  

Date: May 16, 2013  

9:00 am, Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -4, New York)

02:00 pm, British Summer Time (GMT +1, London)  

3:00 pm, Central European Summer Time (GMT +2, Berlin)

Date: May 23, 2013

11:00 am, Pacific Daylight Time (GMT -7, Los Angeles)  

1:00 pm, Central Daylight Time (GMT -5, Chicago)  

2:00 pm, Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -4, New York)  

7:00 pm, British Summer Time (GMT +1, London)  

8:00 pm, Central European Summer Time (GMT +2, Berlin)  

To register for this e-Seminar, please visit

http://www.stn-international.com/e-seminars.html

Jim

Jim Brown

FIZ Karlsruhe, Inc.

jim.brown@fiz-k.com

MaxVal is excited to announce the release of the improved Patent Family Tree Generator (“PFTG”). PFTG provides the user a visually appealing graphical output of the family relationships for any given patent. Given one patent number in a family, PFTG automatically identifies all the related applications and maps them along a timeline. This mapping also includes abandoned and unpublished applications that are identified from the priority details.

This enhanced version provides better visibility and clarity, even for large families (50 or more members). The print to PDF option is also now enabled with high resolution.

Patent Family Tree Generator (“PFTG”)

PFTG extracts family details from various public sources such as USPTO, EPO, INPADOC, etc., and presents the information in a user friendly graphical format.

The intelligence built into the tool automatically color codes the records by country and type and also connects related patents based on priority details.

Each node is populated with bibliographic details extracted from the public domain. Clicking on the patent will display the bibliographic details along with the current legal status (INPADOC).

The inclusion of legal status and extended family information also retrieves additional links, e.g., for divisional applications, continuations, continuations in part or national publications of first filings of PCT (international) applications, where the priority links are often missing.

Patent Family Tree Generator (“PFTG”) is an update driven by customer needs and feedback and is part of MaxVal’s commitment to provide value added and cost-effective solutions using continuous process innovations. Patent Family Tree Generator (“PFTG”) is available for immediate use at http://www.maxval.com/patent-tools-patent-family-tree.html.

Founded in 2005, MaxVal is the global leader in IP services and tools. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to serve the needs of all patent practitioners.

For more information, contact:

Bala Krishnan

650-472-1523 x 216

external_communications@maxval-ip.com

For more information on Patent Family Tree Generator follow the link below:

http://www.maxval.com/patent-tools-patent-family-tree.html

In this Thomson Reuters and STN session we’ll show you how to learn efficiently search for chemical structures in the Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI) on STN using STN Express. It will be both a refresher/update for experts, and a useful introduction for those who are less familiar with the capabilities of DWPI on STN. The session will cover two specific types of DWPI chemical structure searching:

■Standard STN structure searching using the Derwent Chemistry Resource (DCR)

■Chemical Fragmentation Code searching using text strategies generated by STN Express

Get practical tips and tricks for both forms of searching, along with some advice on how to combine DWPI results with answers found using CAS Registry and CAplus databases on STN. We will also show you how to further focus your result set by linking the structures to their role in the invention (for example method of producing the compound or component of a composition), their pharmaceutical/agrochemical activities, or the area of technology they are being used in.  

Date: May 14, 2013

9:00 am, Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -4, New York)

2:00 pm, British Summer Time (GMT +1, London)

3:00 pm, Central European Summer Time (GMT +2, Berlin)

Date: May 14, 2013

11:00 am, Pacific Daylight Time (GMT -7, Los Angeles)

1:00 pm, Central Daylight Time (GMT -5, Chicago)

2:00 pm, Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -4, New York)

7:00 pm, British Summer Time (GMT +1, London)

8:00 pm, Central European Summer Time (GMT +2, Berlin)

To register for this e-Seminar, please visit

http://www.stn-international.com/e-seminars.html

Jim

Jim Brown

FIZ Karlsruhe, Inc.

jim.brown@fiz-k.com

I posed a question at the annual meeting plenary session regarding ePCT private services.  PIUG officers asked me to post the question here.  The question was whether ePCT private services will be updated to 'allow' an ePCT private services account associated with a legal entity, such as a corporation or law firm.  WIPO should update ePCT private services for the following reasons. 

BACKGROUND

ePCT private servcies is organized, and ePCT private service accounts are set up, and ePCT private service accounts are advertized by WIPO, to be real person accounts, individualized to a particular real person.  ePCT is based upon a 'WIPO centric' viewpoint that is in tension with the real world requirements for law firms and businesses to employ procedures to review and ensure compliance with docketing procedures to safeguard rights to inventions of PCT application for which they are responsible.  WIPO did not contemplate the use of ePCT private services by an organization responsible for many PCT applications and including many patent practitioners.  ePCT private services is user specific. 

I am a patent practitioner and I manage a small IP law firm.  I (and my firm) are at the forefront of use of electronic resources for managing intellecutal property.  One such resource is ePCT private services.  ePCT private services currently provides for associattion (in ePCT) of PCT applications filed by an individual practitioner with an ePCT private services account created by that practitioner.  ePCT private services allows the 'owner' of that account, to provide access to a PCT application associated with that account, to other accounts.  The way that works is that the ePCT proviate services account holder first sends a 'handshake' request to other account holders username, and if the other account holder accepts, then the two accounts have an association in ePCT private services.  Then, the ePCT private service account holder can grant, for any PCT application for which the ePCT private services account is the owner, various authorization levels, such as eOwner, or eViewer.  This is on an application by application basis.  Once the original eOwner of a PCT application provides for example eViewer status to another ePCT account, that other ePCT account can set notifications for actions occuring in that PCT application. And that PCT application will appear in a list of PCT applications in that other ePCT account.

ePCT private services therefor allow patent practitioners (agents or attorneys) that each file PCT applications to become ePCT owners of the PCT applications that they each respectively file, and then to assign eViewer rights to each other or to any ePCT account with which they have an established handshake.  There are defects in that procedure from a multi person organization perspective. 

First, the practitioner must assign eViewer rights to some other ePCT account (charged with docket control of an organization's PCT applications) for each PCT application.   What happens if the practitioner fails to assign eViewer rights to the other ePCT account? Then that other ePCT account has no knowledge of PCT applications filed and therefore lacks a basis to conduct post filing docket review and cross check against the organizations local docketing system's list of requirements for PCT filings (for example client notificaction, formalities requirements, nationals stage entry reminders, invoicing, file content and organization, completion of Paris priroity certified document transmittal).  Of course, the practitioner should have gone through an internal docketing process to create a docket record for a PCT application, pre filing, from which docketing actions are keyed.  However, an organization's docket control would have no way to detect failure by the practitioner to create such a docket record.  

Second, ePCT does not provide for efficient business practices when a non practitioner person charged with docket control of an organization leaves that organization.  This is because ePCT private service accounts are tied to an individual. In an organization, that means an individual domain user account having username and password, domain email address tied to that domain user account, and a specific machine having the user's WIPO digital certificate installed.  Normal organization practice requires the termination of the domain user account when the user leaves the organization, and does not provide for storing the users ePCT username and password.  Consequently the ePCT private service account for that user is lost to the organization, when the user leaves the organization.   

Third, ePCT does not provide for transmission of email notifications to a role based account at an organization.  What I mean by this is a domain account having a domain email address used by the organization for a business role. An example is a role for docketing.  A domain account docketing and a domain address docketing@organization.com.  Email notifications in ePCT can be sent to any ePCT user, but WIPO does not support of recommend creation of role based ePCT accounts.  In response to a long chaing of emails between myself and  WIPO officials discussing my concerns on this point, WIPO's Senior Business Analyst, PCT Business Development Division (name withheld due to privacy concerns) stated "

"For the reasons outlined previously, we do not support/recommend the creation of a “general” account that is not in the name of an individual. A possible way forward would be to have one of your docketing clerks set up an account in their own name with their own certificate and ensure that this person be automatically assigned access rights (even eViewer is sufficient) to all your firm’s applications in order to monitor all the incoming notifications. He/she should ensure that all their Notifications preferences are ticked, see below."

There are two problems with that suggestion.  I specified one problem in item "Third".  The second problem is that a user's personal email account in an organization is the wrong place for receiving automated notifications triggering docketing requirements.  Transmission of emails (ePCT notifications) to such an email address is unreliable due to the volume of other emails and the inability to track those other emails in a personal user's account.

On April 1, 2013, the USPTO published several rule changes to Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) in order to implement the changes found in the AIA Technical Corrections Act enacted on January 14, 2013.  These rules took effect immediately although the USPTO will consider written comments received on or before May 31, 2013.  Changes to 37 C.F.R. 1.702, 1.703, and 1.705 apply to any patent granted on or after January 14, 2013.

Among the changes to PTA in the new rules is a change to the start date for the 14-month clock for mailing a first office action or notice of allowance in international patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty.  Under the old rule this USPTO A delay began 14 months after the fulfillment of all of the requirements of 35 U.S.C. 371.  The new rule changes the start date for the 14-month clock to the commencement of the national stage.  This brings international applications in line with applications originally filed in the US and may increase patent term in patents where all of the requirements of 35 U.S.C. 371 were not initially met.  While the AIA Technical Corrections Act similarly changed the 3-year B delay clock to begin at the commencement of the national stage, the USPTO already interpreted the clock to start at this point so no changes have been made.

Another change is the removal of the requirement that the USPTO notify applicants of patent term adjustment determinations at Notice of Allowance.  Under the old rules patent term adjustment was calculated twice, once at notice of allowance and again at issuance.  This led to a situation where applicants had to check patent term twice and potentially petition the USPTO’s calculations twice since applicants could only petition errors found in the original PTA determination before the payment of the issue fee.  Under the new rules the USPTO will provide an indication of the patent term adjustment with the issue notification, but the patent term adjustment indicated on the patent will be the official notification of the Office’s patent term adjustment determination.  This will reduce the cost and burden on the applicants by allowing them to calculate patent term adjustment once at issuance when all adjustments are known.
 
Applicants are still given two months from the issuance of the patent to petition the PTA determination.  However, the new rules now allow this period to be extended by up to five additional months with the payment of extension of time fees.

One potentially negative change for applicants is to 37 C.F.R. 1.705(c) which provides the opportunity to request the reinstatement of PTA reduced by an applicant delay if in spite of all due care, the applicant was unable to reply within three months of the Office communication.  The new rule now limits this request to before the issuance of the patent with no extension of time available.  Applicants should note that much less time is available for this since the USPTO will not calculate PTA until issue notification.

MaxVal provides Patent Term Adjustment verification services. Click here to contact us about more information.

FIZ Karlsruhe and CAS invite you to the STN User Day 2013 in London!

STN User Day 2013

Date/Time
Tuesday, June 11, 2013, 10:15 – 15:30

Agenda

• What's new on STN classic?
• Preview of Version One of new STN
• Tools and Techniques for handling large answer sets on STN
• Tips from the Helpdesk
• STN Current Awareness Update

Venue
76 Portland Place, London W1B 1NT
www.76portlandplace.com/location/

Registration
Although this STN User Day is free of charge, pre-registration is mandatory:

http://www.stn-international.com/stn_user_day_registration_form.html 

We are looking forward to seeing you in London!

"Soaring into Orbit.Com with perfected Search and Analysis tools"

Join us for a refreshing look at the latest Orbit.Com developments with lunch offered at the conclusion of the session. 

In the past two years, Orbit.Com has literally “taken off” with an expansion of our search, analysis  and share tools. 
With the ability now to analyze very large sets of patent results in seconds, Orbit.Com allows you to prepare reports containing a global perspective for strategic areas of technical development in your organization, with customized charts and accurate data. The workshop will include a fictional case study illustrating how Orbit.Com can provide a clear picture of the overall patent landscape, recent trends, close art, available art, freedom to practice, and who to watch and leverage when undertaking a new project.

We will also take a look at new enhancements that are available or coming soon.

Sunday, April 28th 10:00 AM - 12:00  Arbors Room  

  REGISTER NOW

Dear all,

We will be pleased to see you in Arlington next week during the PIUG Annual Conference, and particularly during our Workshop on Thursday 2 May 9:00-10:00am.

This year we will present you our new 8th version which comes with the following main features:

• CPCs analysis
• Document Ranking managed by the user
• easyLIXIR (End user interface) improvement
• Document reviewing module

Feel free to come by our booth to follow a live demonstration during the conference, and/or sign up here http://intellixir.com/en/PIUGworkshop.asp for the wokshop, it is free, including your breakfast !

See you next week!

Pharmaceutical Patent Analyst celebrates its first year of publication with free article give-away

Pharmaceutical Patent Analyst, the bimonthly peer-reviewed title from Future Science Group, is celebrating its first year of publication. The journal has established itself as an authoritative resource for researchers engaged in patent-information analysis and legal specialists working in the IP field.

To mark the one-year milestone Future Science Group has made free-to-access two high-quality papers selected by the journal’s Senior Editors.

“In just one year PPA has become essential reading for those interested in the patent literature”, said Senior Editor Dr Lyn Jones (Pfizer,USA). “It uniquely balances high-quality review articles with a holistic coverage of key topics in the changing world of patent law, providing us with insightful perspectives from experts in their field. The breadth, and depth, of the articles continues to amaze me—there’s something for everyone”.

Patents are a rich source of technical information about the latest advances in the discovery and design of novel therapeutics and healthcare products. Pharmaceutical Patent Analyst is dedicated to publishing high-impact patent reviews covering the most significant recent developments in the patent literature of relevance to all areas of pharmaceutical and medical science. Each issue also features news updates, and regular editorials and opinions on hot topics in pharmaceutical IP law.

“Pharmaceutical Patent Analyst effectively fills a void in the chemical literature as a source of information for both scientists and IP practitioners. The journal does an excellent service to readers by providing updates on drug-discovery progress as well as patent issues and trends that can impact this highly competitive field”, added Prof David Rotella (Montclair State University, USA).

The journal is supported by a multidisciplinary editorial board, comprising researchers and key opinion leaders from academia and industry, along with IP specialists.

The latest issue of Pharmaceutical Patent Analyst can be accessed here:

http://www.future-science.com/toc/ppa/2/2

Sign up for Table of Contents Alerts to stay up to date with the latest issue:

http://www.future-science.com/action/showAlertSettings

If you are interested in receiving a free 30-day online trial to evaluate the journal’s content please contact: info@futuremedicine.com, quoting PPA2013

Featured papers

The following papers will be free to access until April 2013:

Pharmacological chaperones for enzyme enhancement therapy in genetic diseases

http://www.future-science.com/doi/pdf/10.4155/ppa.12.74

Expert recommendation: “This paper reviews the scientific background in a cutting-edge area of science and explores the therapeutic opportunity across a number of rare protein-misfolding diseases. The work accurately assesses the existing patent landscape and will thus serve as a highly useful resource to those active in this exciting, and growing, area of research.” (Dr Lyn Jones)

Clearing the fog: patenting trends for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease

http://www.future-science.com/doi/pdf/10.4155/ppa.12.39

Expert recommendation: “This is an excellent summary of recent patents in a rapidly expanding and highly competitive area of science. The authors use a network patent analysis approach to break this large area down into manageable groups. This analysis leads to therapeutic target grouping (e.g. beta amyloid, tau and RAGE inhibitors) that identifies active contributors to the area; subdivision of these clusters assists with more detailed target information within each group.” (Prof David Rotella)

---ENDS---

About Future Science Group

The Future Science Group is a leading provider of products and services for the medical, science and business communities. The group comprises three independent publishing companies active at the forefront of scientific information, including Expert Reviews Ltd, Future Medicine Ltd and Future Science Ltd.

Complete listings of titles available under each imprint are available at www.expert-reviews.com, www.futuremedicine.com and www.future-science.com.

About Pharmaceutical Patent Analyst

Pharmaceutical Patent Analyst is dedicated to publishing high-impact patent reviews that provide an objective and concise appraisal of patents in a chosen area, set within the context of the wider relevant R&D landscape. To complement the science content, the journal also features news updates, editorials, interviews, perspectives, hot topic articles on IP issues related to the patent lifecycle, or to pharmaceutical/medical R&D more broadly.

Full details on the journal and the types of articles published can be found here:

http://www.future-science.com/page/journal/ppa/aims.jsp

Please direct enquiries regarding the journal or submissions to the Head of Commissioning, Gino D’Oca: g.doca@future-science.com

Coverage in brief:

Analyses of the patent literature:

 Reviews examining patents of relevance to all therapeutic areas are accepted, including:

• Chemical and biological entities of therapeutic significance

• Healthcare products (e.g., medical devices and drug-delivery systems)

• Drug-discovery and design technologies

• Inventions in related disciplines (e.g., biotechnology and nanotechnology)

Articles dedicated to the following are considered:

• Analyses of patenting trends for selected patent classes, therapeutic areas or geographic regions

• Design and application of novel methodologies for searching and analyzing the patent literature

Commentary on IP issues:

• Perspectives and analysis on IP/legal issues of importance to the patent lifecycle, or to pharmaceutical and medical R&D more broadly.

Benefits to authors:

• High visibility and impact by featuring your work in this dedicated patent-review forum

• Rapid publication (typically 8–12 weeks from submission to publication)

• In-house editorial team on hand to provide a personal response to any queries

• Excellent production standards with high-quality figures and text generated by our in house production team

• No page charges based on article length

Making IP Intelligence Easy and Intuitive

Register here: http://is.gd/0up8gA

Relecura (www.relecura.com) is a web-based patent and portfolio analysis platform from INDUS TechInnovations.

Using a case study, the workshop will demonstrate how Relecura may be used to avoid information overload and obtain actionable insights across the innovation life-cycle - from prior-art assessment of invention ideas to IP commercialization. The Relecura platform achieves the above by going beyond database search - using a combination of an uncluttered interface, a comprehensive feature-set for IP analytics and visualization that supports the range of workflows, and powerful technology under the hood for knowledge discovery.

Read about Relecura's features: http://is.gd/bqujRC [PDF]
Read our white papers: http://www.relecura.com/wp.php

Specific chemical substances in Derwent World Patents Index documents are readily accessible via its structure searchable database segment, the DWPI Chemistry Resource (DCR).  In this workshop, we will explore the content of DCR and demonstrate the search capabilities using a series of examples, including tips on combining multi-file search results with REGISTRY, CAPLUS, and MARPAT.  

Date: April 28, 2013 Time: 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm

Location: PIUG 2013 Annual Meeting at Hilton Alexandria Mark Center Room: Terrace East

The workshop is free, but registration is required.

 To register for this workshop, please visit

http://www.stn-international.com/stn_registration_form_us.html

Jim

JIm Brown

FIZ Karlsruhe, Inc.

jim.brown@fiz-k.com

The April issue of STNews, the STN e-Newsletter, is now available. Highlights include:

• SciSearch on STN Now Includes New Fields for Finding Grant Information More Easily
• JAPIO Will No Longer Be Updated from March 2013 Onwards
• Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) Added to USPATOLD on STN

To view this month's issue and to subscribe, visit STNews.