Engineering Library Reference Manual

Official Gazettes

A new gazette is published each week. Patents are always issued on Tuesdays. The spine of the bound volumes indicate the FIRST patent (first design and first utility) in each volume. The range of patents in each volume can be determined by looking at the spine of the next volume on the shelf.

From 1872-1971 the Gazette for patents and trademarks were published together in the same volume. In 1971 they split apart and are currently being published separately. All the Gazettes (1871-2002) are in the Reference collection under their call number (T223 A2b). The patent gazettes are bound in the buff colored binding, the trademark gazettes in the rust colored binding.

In 2002 the USPTO began to issue the Official Gazette (OG) online. But only the Official Notices which comprise the front matter of the Official Gazettes are available online. Specific patent and trademark entries are available online via the USPTO Patent and Trademark Databases.

The Patent Gazettes for the last 52 weeks can now be found on the USPTO website: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/og/index.html.

The recently registered trademarks can be found in print Trademark Gazettes through July 2004. They are on the USPTO website electronically (PDF) for the most current 5 issues only: http://www.uspto.gov/web/trademarks/tmog/

Within the Gazettes the patents are arranged numerically. After a large amount of front matter come the reissues, re-examinations, and plant patents. The utility patents follow these, and the design patents come at the very end of each weekly gazette.

NOTE: Most of the older bound volumes of Gazettes will have more than one weekly Gazette bound together. Be aware that design patents will come at the end of each week so there will sometimes be TWO OR MORE places to look for design patents in each bound volume.

NOTE: The internal arrangement of the Gazettes has changed over time. If you are looking in older Gazettes be aware that this arrangement is the current one and may not have been followed in the year in question. Always consult the table of contents in each Gazette if you are having difficulty locating a particular section.

Full Text Patents

Full-text patents also available online at Google Patent Search, the IBM patent website, Community of Science, and other sites. For a list of sites, please go to our web page at: www.lib.washington.edu/engineering/ptdl/webpat.html

We also still have full text patents on microfilm from 1966-1999. Full-text patents include all of the drawings and all of the claims of a patent. Patents after 1999 are issued via the USAPAT CDROMs, and online at the USPTO website. We do have missing/broken microfilm reels and a complete list of known broken or missing reels can be found on the top of the microfilm. Patent microfilm is library use only and should never be circulated.

Other Patent Resources

A CD-Rom database which is located in the Patent & Trademark Reference Area. It is a command based search system: out of order 9/08.

The handout/workbook titled “Patent Searching at the University of Washington Engineering Library” provides a thorough step-by-step guide on how to conduct a complete patent search. This guide can also be found on the web at

Little Known Facts about Patents

• 
  Only 2% of patented items are every produced commercially and marketed.
  
• 
  The longest United States Patent is 5,146,591 with 3,071 pages.
  
• 
  The second longest United States Patent is 5,615,282 with 2,049 pages
  
• 
  The USPTO has issued 12 patents over 1000 pages and more than 20 that are 500-999 pages.
  
• 
  Patents are only issued on Tuesdays. New patents are issued every Tuesday.
  

Other Patent Documents include: Reissues, Certificates of Correction, Abandoned Applications/Patents, Continuations, Statutory Invention Registration, Defensive Publications.

Reissue Patents

Sometimes you will get questions about reissue patents: What are they? How do I find them? These are the patent documents like RExxxxx (RE followed by a five digit number).

Reissue patents are not renewals. Usually, a patent is reissued because something wrong about the patent is found after it issued. The error has to be substantive; more than something like a typo. Certificates of correction cover the minor issuing errors.

Technically, the patent must be "defective:"

When the patent is defective in certain respects, the law provides that the patentee may apply for a reissue patent. Following an examination in which the proposed changes correcting any defects in the original patent are evaluated, a reissue patent may be granted to replace the original for the balance of the unexpired term. However, the nature of the changes that can be made by means of the reissue are rather limited; new matter cannot be added. Reissue patents are designated by a RE prefix before the patent number, for example, RE 37,514.

Some common reasons for reissue patents

The claims are determined to be too narrow or too broad;

An inaccuracy in the specifications, drawings, claims, etc. or there are problems with references, foreign priority, and other application disclosures.

To locate Reissue patents by patent number:

From the Browse Granted Patents page, enter the number in the Patent Number entry box as RE37514 or RE037514 and click the Go button.

To browse reissue patents:

From the Browse Granted Patents page, click on the Reissue Patents Granted link to display classifications and patent numbers. Click on patent numbers to display specific patents or use the previous and next buttons to browse the entire section.

Phone Reference Techniques for helping Patent Researchers

What do we do? What don't we do?

• 
  Use diplomacy. Do not practice law. Give generic advice on how to do a search using generic examples; i.e. baseball bats (from our handout). Do not offer opinions or advice on a person’s specific invention or idea or how they are searching it;
  

• 
  Patent Citation Searching: we can certainly look up a patent citation for someone if they call or come in with one;
  

• 
  Patent Searching on the Internet: again, we offer general advice on how to do a search, following the handout. We do not do searches for people, cannot recommend anyone that does and there is no longer any service on the UW Campus that does this;
  

• 
  Applications (provisional and non-provisional) may need to explain the difference;
  

• 
  Maintenance Fees (paid 3 times over the life of a patent): patents can expire for failure to pay maintenance fees.
  

Download 0.59 Mb.

Share with your friends: