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U.S. PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
Electronic Information Products Division
Patent Technology Monitoring Team (PTMT)

MECHANICAL CLASSES

PARTS A1, A2, B
Granted: 01/01/1977 - 12/31/2006
A Patent Technology Monitoring Team Report

Parts of the Report

Description of the Report

Report Printing and Use of Spreadsheet Software

PART A1 -

Number of Patents Granted As Distributed By Year Of Patent Grant

• (Table A1-1a) Breakout By Country of Origin
• (Table A1-1b) Breakout By Ownership Category

Percent of Patents Granted As Distributed By Year Of Patent Grant

• (Table A1-2a) Breakout By Country of Origin
• (Table A1-2b) Breakout By Ownership Category

PART A2 -

Number of Patents Granted As Distributed By Year Of Patent Application

• (Table A2-1a) Breakout By Country of Origin
• (Table A2-1b) Breakout By Ownership Category

Percent of Patents Granted As Distributed By Year Of Patent Application

• (Table A2-2a) Breakout By Country of Origin
• (Table A2-2b) Breakout By Ownership Category

PART B

Organizational Patentees With 200 or More Patents Granted During the Period, As Distributed By Year Of Patent Grant and As Distributed By Year Of Patent Application

CONTACT INFORMATION -

MECHANICAL CLASSES
PARTS A1, A2, B
Granted: 01/01/1977 - 12/31/2006
A Patent Technology Monitoring Team Report

Description of the Report

This report counts only documents of the following type(s):
utility patents (i.e., "patents for invention")
granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office during the period 01/01/1977 - 12/31/2006. These profiled documents hereafter will be referred to as "patents".

The report is generated by identifying appropriate Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) classes, i.e., those entirely or substantially pertinent to the technology discipline of interest. The patents in these classes are then included in the profile. This procedure results, in most cases, in the inclusion of the majority of patents relevant to the technology discipline and few, if any, patents which are not relevant. However, any patent listing provided should not be considered to be inclusive of all relevant patents, nor exclusive of all irrelevant patents.

CHEMICAL, ELECTRICAL, MECHANICAL CLASSES - DECEMBER 2006

The following table displays the USPCS classes that are included in the CHEMICAL CLASSES report

8	23	44	48	51	55	65	71	75	95	96	106	117	127	136	148	149	156	159	162
196	201	202	203	204	205	208	209	210	216	252	260	261	264	376	419	420	422	423	424
426	427	428	429	430	435	436	438	442	501	502	504	507	508	510	512	514	516	518	520
521	522	523	524	525	526	527	528	530	532	534	536	540	544	546	548	549	552	554	556
558	560	562	564	568	570	585	588	800	930	976	987

The following subclasses are also Chemical: 134/1-42; 131/274-279; 505/100-126, 300-512, 725-785, 800-824, 951

The following table displays the USPCS classes that are included in the ELECTRICAL CLASSES report

174	178	191	200	218	219	235	250	257	290	307	310	313	314	315	318	320	322	323	324
326	327	329	330	331	332	333	334	335	336	337	338	340	341	342	343	345	346	348	349
355	358	360	361	362	363	365	367	368	369	370	372	373	375	377	378	379	380	381	382
383	386	388	392	396	398	399	455	503	505	700	701	702	703	704	705	706	707	708	709
710	711	712	713	714	715	716	717	718	719	720	725	726	902

The following subclasses are also Electrical: 84/600-746; 385/1-52; 359/1-108, 237-361, 558-590, 901-902; 968/876-977; 984/300-398

The following table displays the USPCS classes that are included in the MECHANICAL CLASSES report

2	4	5	7	12	14	15	16	19	24	26	27	28	29	30	33	34	36	37	38
40	42	43	47	49	52	53	54	56	57	59	60	62	63	66	68	69	70	72	73
74	76	79	81	82	83	84	86	87	89	91	92	99	100	101	102	104	105	108	109
110	111	112	114	116	118	119	122	123	124	125	126	128	131	132	134	135	137	138	139
140	141	142	144	147	150	152	157	160	163	164	165	166	168	169	171	172	173	175	177
180	181	182	184	185	186	187	188	190	192	193	194	198	199	206	211	212	213	215	217
220	221	222	223	224	225	226	227	228	229	231	232	234	236	237	238	239	241	242	244
245	246	248	249	251	254	256	258	266	267	269	270	271	273	276	277	278	279	280	281
283	285	289	291	292	293	294	295	296	297	298	299	300	301	303	305	312	347	351	352
353	356	359	366	374	384	385	400	401	402	403	404	405	406	407	408	409	410	411	412
413	414	415	416	417	418	425	431	432	433	434	439	440	441	445	446	449	450	451	452
453	454	460	462	463	464	470	472	473	474	475	476	477	482	483	492	493	494	600	601
602	604	606	607	623	901	968	984

The following subclasses are also Mechanical: 209/3.1-3.3, 44-44.4, 509-707, 900-942; 8/147-159

PATENTS INCLUDED IN THIS REPORT

This Patent Technology Monitoring Team (PTMT) Report profiles patent activity for U.S. patents granted between 01/01/1977 and 12/31/2006. The source of the data used for this report is the TAF database maintained by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

PARTS A1 AND A2 (IF INCLUDED)

Parts A1 and A2, if included, present tables which profile, by number and percent, the activity of the specified patents. Annual totals may be provided for some years and a consolidated year total also may be provided. Part A1 presents data by year of patent grant ("Patents Granted As Distributed By Year of Patent Grant"). Part A2 redistributes patent grant data by year of patent application, i.e., the year in which each patent application was filed ("Patents Granted As Distributed By Year of Patent Application"). Patent data as shown in the "Pre YYYY" column (where "YYYY" is a four-digit year) correspond to activity in the specified period prior to "YYYY".

In Tables A1-1a and A2-1a, the totals are broken down by origin (patent origin is determined by the residence of the first-named inventor), either U.S. or foreign. Separate counts are displayed for many of the foreign countries receiving the most granted patents during the period. In Tables A1-1b and A2-1b, patent counts are displayed according to general category of ownership, e.g., corporate-owned, government-owned, or individual-owned.

Patent ownership information reflects ownership at the time of patent grant and does not include subsequent changes in ownership. If more than one assignee (owner entity) was declared at the time of grant, the patent is attributed to the first-named assignee. The U.S. and Foreign Corporations ownership categories count predominantly corporate patents; however, patents assigned to other organizations such as small businesses, nonprofit organizations, universities, etc. are also included in this category. While U.S. Government patent ownership includes only patents granted to the Federal Government, no such distinction is made for Foreign Government ownership patents.

Please note that U.S. origin patents may have foreign category ownership and that foreign origin patents may have U.S. category ownership. Therefore, the patents having U.S.category ownership (or foreign category ownership) do not necessarily correspond to the patents having U.S. origin (or foreign origin) and the sum of U.S. category ownership patents (or foreign category ownership patents) will not equal the sum of U.S. origin patents (or foreign origin patents).

Also, please note that patent documents in the TAF database are limited to utility patents granted no earlier than January 1963 and to other document types (i.e., design, plant, and reissue patents, statutory invention registrations, and defensive publications) granted no earlier than 1977.

PART B (IF INCLUDED)

Part B is a listing of national and international organizations (i.e., corporations, universities, government agencies, etc.) that have received U.S. patents during the profiled time period. The availability of assigned ownership data in the TAF database, as displayed in Part B, begins in 1969 for utility patent grants and in 1977 for design, plant, and reissue patents, statutory invention registrations, and defensive publications. The listing is limited to organizations receiving 200 or more patents during the period. This minimum number is identified in the title heading of the table. Part B ranks these organizations in terms of total patents granted for the period and displays their annual patent activity for the most recent period. Patent grants are distributed in two ways, by year of grant and by year of patent application. Data line 1 for each listed organization distributes the counts of patent grants by the year of grant while data line 2 redistributes those same patent grants by the year in which the patented applications were filed. Please note that in some reports, only one of the two data lines may be displayed. Information regarding patent ownership reflects ownership at the time of patent grant. Although a substantial effort has been made to combine name variations into a single organizational name, many organizations continue to have patents listed under more than one name.

Patent data, as shown in the "Pre YYYY" column (where "YYYY" is a four-digit year), correspond to activity in the specified period prior to "YYYY".

DATA DISTRIBUTION BY YEAR OF GRANT AND BY YEAR OF APPLICATION

Other Considerations

DATA FOR THOSE APPLICATIONS WHICH WERE FILED BUT NEVER ISSUED (ROUGHLY 30% OF TOTAL FILINGS) ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THIS REPORT.

Since the average time period between filing for a patent and the issuing of the patent (i.e., the patent's "pendency") is now about 30 months (for utility patents), the patent grant data, as distributed by year of application, are incomplete for the most recent years that are displayed in the report.* This is because a significant number of those applications which ultimately will become patents were still pending as of these most recent years that are displayed.

Patented application data are of significant value since the date an application was filed more accurately reflects when the technology was developed. Additionally, fluctuations in data based on application date are much more likely to reflect changes in technological activity since, for the most part, such fluctuations would be immune from changes in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) processing such as occurred in years such as 1986 and 2005 when the USPTO issued fewer patents than would have normally been expected due to administrative reasons. Note that a patent's "pendency" can be quite variable from one patent to another, thereby affecting the date of patent grant. Such variation in pendency is determined by many factors, including PTO workload (which varies between technologies), budget and manpower levels, patent printing schedules, etc. Please note that other types of patent documents such as design patents, plant patents, reissue patents, statutory invention registrations,and defensive publications may have average pendency periods that differ somewhat from the pendency period for utility patents.

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* For example, in a report profiling utility patents granted through December 2006, patent grant data, as distributed by year of application are approximately 94% complete for utility patent applications filed in 2000, 86% complete for applications filed in 2001, 76% complete for applications filed in 2002, 54% complete for applications filed in 2003, and 27% complete for applications filed in 2004; data are essentially complete for applications filed prior to 2000.

Report Printing and the Use of Spreadsheet Software

This report can be printed from an Internet browser - for such printing, optimal results are usually obtained by printing in landscape orientation with minimal margins and a small text font. Microsoft Internet Explorer, version 7, works paticularly well for printing this report using its "Shrink to Fit" option in Print Preview mode.

Additionally, a user may import this report file into spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel to facilitate printing. Such spreadsheet software also may facilitate sorting and further manipulation of the data.

MECHANICAL CLASSES
PARTS A1, A2, B
Granted: 01/01/1977 - 12/31/2006
A Patent Technology Monitoring Team Report

Part A1
Tables A1-1a and A1-1b

Number of Patents Granted as Distributed by Year of Patent Grant,
Breakout by Country of Origin (Table A1-1a) and by Ownership Category (Table A1-1b)

MECHANICAL CLASSES
PARTS A1, A2, B
Granted: 01/01/1977 - 12/31/2006
A Patent Technology Monitoring Team Report

Part A1
Tables A1-2a and A1-2b

Percent of Patents Granted as Distributed by Year of Patent Grant,
Breakout by Country of Origin (Table A1-2a) and by Ownership Category (Table A1-2b)

MECHANICAL CLASSES
PARTS A1, A2, B
Granted: 01/01/1977 - 12/31/2006
A Patent Technology Monitoring Team Report

Part A2
Tables A2-1a and A2-1b

Number of Patents Granted as Distributed by Year of Patent Application,
Breakout by Country of Origin (Table A2-1a) and by Ownership Category (Table A2-1b)

MECHANICAL CLASSES
PARTS A1, A2, B
Granted: 01/01/1977 - 12/31/2006
A Patent Technology Monitoring Team Report

Part A2
Tables A2-2a and A2-2b

Percent of Patents Granted as Distributed by Year of Patent Application,
Breakout by Country of Origin (Table A2-2a) and by Ownership Category (Table A2-2b)