re Conducting patent searches at USPTO

Started by Kevin_Johnson, 12-07-18 at 09:58 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Kevin_Johnson

Hi,

In the PTO advanced search area mention is made that patents prior to 1975 do not have full search parameters available:

"Patents from 1790 through 1975 are searchable only by Issue Date, Patent Number, and Current Classification (US, IPC, or CPC)."

I have always been able to pull up many inventions by the name of the inventor.  However, the above appears to indicate that there are patents which may not come up when simply using the inventor's name.

Does anyone have a definitive answer to this?  It seems like a question that would come up during law school.  The use of the term "only" appears to be incorrect on its face.

Thanks!

MYK

Quote from: Kevin_Johnson on 12-07-18 at 09:58 PM
"Patents from 1790 through 1975 are searchable only by Issue Date, Patent Number, and Current Classification (US, IPC, or CPC)."

I have always been able to pull up many inventions by the name of the inventor.  However, the above appears to indicate that there are patents which may not come up when simply using the inventor's name.

Does anyone have a definitive answer to this?  It seems like a question that would come up during law school.  The use of the term "only" appears to be incorrect on its face.
Why would it come up during law school?

And, did you try it?  The results are very inconsistent in the older patents, although you can get some results.  Searching on "in/willis and in/carrier" turns up patents back to about 1920 -- but not Carrier's original air conditioning patent from 1906.

The USPTO used poor-quality automated OCR on their pre-1976 files.  While it's understandable that they didn't want to waste money on doing it all by hand when they set up the online search system, they could have gradually done it in the years since.  The patents are public;  they could have sent them to Indonesia to be typed in by hand, at least for key fields.  They didn't.  Someone said that's what Delphi did (now merged into Reuters or Lexis, IIRC).
"The life of a patent solicitor has always been a hard one."  Judge Giles Rich, Application of Ruschig, 379 F.2d 990.

Disclaimer: not only am I not a lawyer, I'm not your lawyer.  Therefore, this does not constitute legal advice.



www.intelproplaw.com

Terms of Use
Feel free to contact us:
Sorry, spam is killing us.

iKnight Technologies Inc.

www.intelproplaw.com