Sent to you by Sean McBride via Google Reader: Patents.com for free patent searches on the web via Alt Search Engines by Guest Author on 9/3/08 Asked by my editor to take a look at Patents.com, I immediately began thinking of how I might use it in my other life as a medical library staffer. After all, not all of us are patent attorneys or inventor wannabees. How might people outside the product development and startup realms benefit from this service?
First of all, they might benefit by taking a look at Patents.com for some ideas on how to design a slick, handsome, user-friendly Web site. I spend hours looking at Web site after Web site and the home page of Patents.com tells me exactly what I need to know and elegantly so. I tried as my search term, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and got some really fascinating, useful results. I was about to share some of those with you in this paragraph, but I was interrupted by a pop-up asking me to register. Now here is a marketing tip to all Web 2.0 services. Be sure to indicate whether your services are free. If they are, I will try them out and maybe eventually sign up for fee-only services. But I am leery of signing up for what I cannot determine is free. This is the wording in the pop-up: Registering for a Patents Account is easy and will enable you to enjoy the Patents Account features as well as create a Patent Community profile. With your Patents Account, you will be able to: 1. Save your patent searches. 2. Create RSS feeds of your saved patent search or searches. 3. Create alerts of patents you are monitoring on the Intellectual Property Exchange. We are also working on many other features which you will have access to through your Patents Account. Register now and help us shape the Patent Community, the Intellectual Property Exchange, and the Patents.com tools and features you want to see. Simply fill in the required fields, enter a username, agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Statement, and click Submit.” Now, that does sound like an extremely useful service. Getting RSS feeds of the incredibly granulated patent searches you can set up on Patents.com in order to monitor them for personal interest or for reasons of competitive intelligence purposes is something well worth looking into it. It is just surprising that the obviously brilliant people behind this site have not rendered it clear to average users what the cost is, if any, of registering. Take note all search engine and Web 2.0 sites: If I can’t immediately determine what I am getting into, I tend to exit without signing up. And I am not unusual in that. That said, my search term resulted in a useful, comprehensive overview of recent patents in a variety of technologies and fields. Examples of patents granted in August for ALS included: Electrical Stimulation Device and Method for the Treatment of Neurological Disorders; Methods for the Treatment and Prevention of Neurodegenerative Conditions; Diagnostic Marker for Neurodegenerative Diseases. By clicking on the patent number for the last I got some useful info on neurodegenerative diseases generally straight from the patent abstract. This is information that medical librarians and public librarians could employ when asked about the latest treatments for any number of diseases in combination with MedlinePlus, clinicaltrials.gov and PubMed. Patents.com would also be useful for average people curious about technology or high school kids and their teachers engaged in science fair-type projects. The IP Exchange page: http://www.patents.com/IPExchange/Default.aspx offers an intriguing look into what is happening in the intellectual property world with categories such as Latest News, Latest Listings, and Featured Patents. It was fun to click on “see all newest patents” and to daydream about making a pile from some device that everyone on the planet will want. You can even contact the holder of a patent via Patents.Com. All together, this is an impressive tool and should be a boon to inventors, entrepreneurs, educators and is a exemplar of the marriage of the Web, lively intellectual fora and the nobler aspects of capitalism at its finest. Way to go, founders! By Hope Leman Things you can do from here: - Subscribe to Alt Search Engines using Google Reader - Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites
