Searching Patents and Trademarks

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE PUBLIC SEARCH FACILITY (PSF)

SEARCHING PATENTS AND TRADEMARKS

VOL. XI No. 3, August 2010

Public User Meetings are held quarterly.  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
  

 

QUARTERLY PUBLIC USER MEETINGS

Public User Meetings will now be scheduled on a quarterly rather than monthly basis. The meeting will be held in the Global Intellectual Property Academy located on the second floor of Public Search Facility.

The first quarterly meeting is scheduled for Monday, August 30, 2010 at 2:00pm.  CIO John Owens plans to attend this meeting.

 

PSF STAFF CONDUCT SEARCH FACILITY TOURS

Along with assisting patrons with patent and trademark searching and questions, the PSF staff provides tours of the Public Search Facility sharing historical information and artifacts in the context of public searching over the years.  The main focus of the tour is a demonstration of the available electronic searching tools available at the PSF.  Tour guides explain the types of patent and trademark information that can be accessed using the Universal Public Workstation. Close to 1,000 patrons have taken a PSF tour so far this year.  A wide-range of individuals request PSF tours for example, history buffs, students, attorneys, foreign visitors and senior citizens.  To request a tour pick-up a copy of the Public Search Facility Tour brochure at the Reference Desk at the entrance to the search facility. 

 

Search Collections

• Digital
• Print
• Microfilm
  

 

REFERENCE COLLECTION UPDATE

The 2009 edition of 37 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights is now available as part of the search facility’s general reference collection. This revised publication is located on wall shelving near the reference desk.

 

PRINT REQUEST PAGE LIMITS

When printing in UPWS, each application has limits on the range of pages that will print for one submitted print request.  For example, the page print limit for EAST is 180 pages.  If the patent documents you wish to print contain more than 180 total pages, a notice in red will appear.  At that point, deselect some of the documents and resubmit your print request. The PSF handout titled Limitations available in the circular racks at the PSF On-Line Assistance desks identifies system and application limits that you may encounter.

 

Search Interfaces

• Structure
• Capabilities
• Modules
  

 

NEW WINDOWS INTERNET EXPLORER 8 (ie8) IS  HERE

Windows Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), the latest version of this web browser, is being installed on UPWS workstations.  Public users had the opportunity to preview the IE 8 enhancements at the Beta workstations located on the first floor of the Public Search Facility from August 2^nd through August 6^th.  prior to the IE8 release to the workstations.

Some key enhancements/changes are:

Navigating within an application

1. Pop up message Window displays
2. Using BACK key within an application

 

For more details, check out the handout available in the What’s New! Section of the circular literature rack at the On-Line Assistance desks.

 

Search Topics

• Hints
• Results
• Reminders
  

 

UPDATING YOUR UPWS E-MAIL ADDRESSES

Remember to keep your UPWS e-mail addresses current.  Upon request, the Public Search Facility staff will delete old email addresses associated with your UPWS account.  Ask a staff member at the Online Assistance desk to delete any invalid email addresses you are no longer using.  If you provide your UPWS User ID and the email address you want deleted to the staff they will delete the invalid address.  By periodically updating your UPWS text transfer e-mail address list the number of e-mail messages that cannot be delivered to the recipient due to an incorrect e-mail address will decrease.

 

EAST“BUG” LOCATED

There is currently an issue which results in EAST crashing when trying to copy information from pagemarks.  There are two areas where all pagemark summaries can be displayed, one from the Search window and one from the Browser window. 

The EAST crash occurs when opening up the pagemark summary from the Search Window, choosing “View” and then “Pagemarks”.  This will display the pagemarks. However when an attempt is made to use the CTRL + C to copy highlighted text, EAST will crash.

The preferred method of going to “TOOLS” from the Browser Window and selecting “Pagemark Summary of All Documents” continues to work without EAST crashes. You can highlight the desired columns and copy and paste them into notepad.

 

 

Public Information Services
United States Patent and Trademark Office
P. O. Box 1450
Alexandria, VA 22313-1450