Patents and Trademarks ASSIGN Subscriber Notice

2000 December Issue

We are pleased to provide you with the first issue of Patents and Trademarks ASSIGN, consolidating the Patents ASSIGN and Trademarks ASSIGN products. This issue was published with the new Cassis2 user interface on DVD-ROM. This disc also contains the CD Answer version of the product. You must have a DVD-ROM drive to access this disc.

Windows capabilities and the new and improved Cassis2 features are now available, including an online Help system. In addition, we have enhanced the individual product.

• Enhancements to Patents and Trademarks ASSIGN:


1. The assignment records for patent and trademark assignments have been merged into one database. This will enable you to retrieve all assignments for a company without having to change discs. If you prefer to search for patent or trademark assignments separately, you can use the new Document Type field to specify which type of document to search.
2. Certain symbols and characters which are normally not searchable, such as the ampersand (&), have been indexed to enable retrieval. To retrieve these characters, you must enter a special code; for example, amp is the code for &. For a complete listing of these codes, please consult Appendix A of the Patent and Trademarks ASSIGN User's Guide. It is now also possible to display these special characters and many others that were previously not displayable, such as the accent mark in José.

• Patent and Trademarks ASSIGN User's Guide:

A draft copy of the Patent and Trademarks ASSIGN User's Guide accompanies this disc. The User's Guide provides details of the Cassis2 user interface and the file contents of the disc. Step-by-step instructions for constructing search queries are provided as well.

• System Requirements for this disc:

Pentium PC running Windows 95 (service pack 5); Windows 98; Windows NT (service pack 4); or Windows 2000; Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher is necessary to access the online Help system; and a Second-generation DVD-ROM drive. Note that this software will not run under DOS or Windows 3.x.

• Installation Instructions:


• Insert the disc into the DVD-ROM drive. Open My Computer or Windows Explorer and locate your DVD-ROM drive. Click on the setup.exe file to begin the installation process.
• It is recommended that you accept all defaults by clicking the Next button.
  • If you change the default directory during the first stage of the installation process, you must also change it during the second stage. If the directory location is not synchronized, you will receive a "file not found" error and the application will not run.
  • When you are asked about leaving repository files on the setup disc, accept the default. If you do not accept this default, you will copy more than 6GB to your hard drive.
• The installation process will begin. The process is in two stages, DO NOT press any buttons until the process is complete! When the installation is complete, you will receive a message that the install is complete.
• Once Cassis2 is installed, you will open the program from Start/Programs/ Cassis/Cassis (unless you changed the directory).

If you have an earlier version of the software on your computer, you will be prompted to uninstall that version prior to installing the new version. Confirm that you want to uninstall, but answer NO when asked about uninstalling shared files, such as files with .dll or .ocx extensions.

We apologize for our recently encountered production problems. Production is now back on schedule. The migration to Cassis2 for the Patents and Trademarks assignments product is complete and, from here on out, it will just be a matter of processing the data. We anticipate that the new features and capabilities will create a more efficient searching environment for you. Please contact us with any problems, comments, or questions you may have.

2001 April 10