Wednesday Shorts: New Tools and References

WIPO Gold - yesterday, WIPO launched "WIPO Gold", a free, on-line global IP reference resource that provides simplified access to a broad collection of searchable IP data and tools relating to, for example, technology, brands, designs, statistics, WIPO standards, IP classification systems and IP laws and treaties.

WIPO’s "Patentscope" search service provides free-of-charge, high-quality searches of data relating to over 1.7 million international patent applications filed under the PCT, and patent data collections of a growing number of countries.

To access WIPO Gold, click here (link)

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USPTO & Google's Bulk Patent Data Service - today, the USPTO announced it has reached a two-year "no-cost" agreement with Google to make patent and trademark data electronically available for free to the public in bulk form.  According to Tech Daily Dose, "[s]aying it currently lacks the technical capacity to offer such a service itself, the PTO said the two-year agreement with Google is a temporary solution while the agency seeks a contractor to build the PTO its own database that would allow the public to access such data in electronic machine-readable bulk form."

Available information includes patent grants and published applications; trademark applications; TTAB  proceedings; patent classification information; patent maintenance fee information; and patent and trademark assignments.

To access the site, click here (link)

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Everything You Wanted to Know About ITC Proceedings -  UC Berkeley Professor Peter Menell, together with a slew of top ITC litigators, have published the "Section 337 Patent Investigation Management Guide" (624 pages) that covers virtually every facet of patent-related ITC litigation:

[T]he authors have developed a comprehensive, user-friendly, and practical guide for experienced ITC professionals as well as new entrants to this important branch of patent enforcement. Organized around the contours of ITC investigations, this treatise provides invaluable insight into the nuances of ITC procedures from a perspective not captured in existing treatises. The handbook will serve as a critical resource for companies seeking to evaluate their options, enforcement strategies, and defense tools, as well as for the full range of patent professionals – many of whom have little experience with the ITC process. This volume
also provides intellectual property scholars and law students with a highly accessible pathway into this complex and specialized field of litigation. It integrates detailed case management approaches and comparative analysis of procedural options with the historical development of unfair trade practices law and comprehensive analysis of claim construction and patent law doctrines.

The treatise will be formally published Fall 2010, but you can download a preliminary draft here (link)