New Patent and Trademark Resource Center Now Open to the Public

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced in a press release that the University of New Hampshire School of Law Library, which was designated as the Concord Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC) on January 30, 2012, is now open to serve the intellectual property (IP) needs of the public.

“PTRCs serve as the face of the USPTO on a local level and promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship that ensures that potential filers have the resources necessary to draw on for support as they begin their quest for commercial success with their intellectual property,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos. “We look forward to working with the University of New Hampshire School of Law, formerly Franklin Pierce Law Center, to better serve New Hampshire’s IP community.”

Currently, PTRC designated libraries can be found in 46 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. This network of more than 80 public, academic, state and special libraries assists a variety of customers including inventors, intellectual property attorneys/agents, business people, researchers, entrepreneurs, students and historians.

In addition to offering free electronic services and resources designed to support the intellectual property needs of local and state patrons, the Concord Patent and Trademark Resource Center will employ USPTO-trained librarians to provide customer assistance on the use of the agency’s patent and trademark databases and public seminars on intellectual property topics for novice and experienced users.

World IP Day message from WIPO Director General Francis Gurry

Today is World Intellectual Property Day!  WIPO Director General Francis Gurry took the opportunity to call on young people to talk about IP. Here is his message:


World Intellectual Property Day is an opportunity to celebrate the contribution that intellectual property makes to innovation and cultural creation – and the immense good that these two social phenomena bring to the world.


It is an opportunity to create greater understanding about the role of intellectual property as a balancing mechanism between the competing interests which surround innovation and cultural creation: the interests of the individual creator and those of society; the interests of the producer and those of the consumer; the interest in encouraging innovation and creation, and the interest in sharing the benefits that derive from them.

This year the theme of World IP Day is visionary innovators – people whose innovations transform our lives. Their impact is enormous. They can, at times, change the way society operates.

Take the Chinese innovator, Cai Lun. He laid the foundations for the manufacturing of paper – a technology that transformed everything, because it enabled the recording of knowledge. Then there was the invention of moveable type. This was taken up in Europe by Johannes Gutenberg with his invention of the printing press, which in turn enabled the dissemination and democratization of knowledge. In our own lifetimes we have witnessed the migration of content to digital format, and the great distributional power for creative works that has been brought about by the Internet and the development of the World Wide Web – for whom we have to thank, among others, Tim Berners Lee.

Behind many extraordinary innovations there are extraordinary human stories. At a time when there were few female scientists, Marie Curie Sklodowska had to struggle to establish herself as a scientist in her own right as opposed to the wife of a scientist. She also struggled as an immigrant working in another community. Her desire to understand led to the fundamental discoveries for which she was awarded two Nobel prizes in two separate disciplines – in physics and in chemistry – the only person ever to have achieved this.

In the arts, innovation revolves around new ways of seeing things. A visionary artist or a composer or a writer is able to show us a different way, a new way of looking at the world. Bob Dylan, for example: he captured what was in the air and transformed several genres of music, essentially bending the genres of folk and rock music. Or consider architects – like Zaha Hadid or Norman Foster – who are transforming urban landscapes, and beautifying our existence in new ways, while at the same time taking into account the need to preserve the environment.

We are dependent upon innovation to move forward. Without innovation we would remain in the same condition as a human species that we are in now. Yet inventions or innovations – in the health field for example – are of relatively little value to society unless they can be used and shared. This is the great policy dilemma. On the one hand, the cost of innovation in modern medicine is enormous. On the other hand, the need for compassion, and the need for sharing useful innovations, is also enormous.

I believe we should look upon intellectual property as an empowering mechanism to address these challenges.

But we have to get the balances right, and that is why it is so important to talk about intellectual property. On this World Intellectual Property Day I would encourage young people in particular to join in the discussion, because intellectual property is, by definition, about change, about the new. It is about achieving the transformations that we want to achieve in society.


Time to celebrate!

One, two… in three days, actually this Thursday, organizations from all over the world will celebrate World IP Day 2012. And so does InventorHaus, Inc.!

As Marijan Jordan and Gerhard Muthenthaler, the founders of the company, as well as their team know about the problems inventors face and how important it is to protect intellectual property, they decided to support the World IP Day 2012 to:


  • raise awareness about the importance of intellectual property
  • connect you with other organizations and people in the invention field
  • provide useful tips
  • give you information about the World IP Day
  • publish interesting interviews with people who deal with inventions every day
  • help inventors to bring their ideas and IP successfully to market



World IP Day will also be celebrated with an open house day at the company´s inventor shops in Berlin, Germany (Gleimstraße 31) and Salzburg, Austria (Innsbrucker Bundesstraße 54) on Thursday April 26th from 10 am to 5 pm.

If you are interested just email to info@world-ip-day.com and schedule an appointment with one of the company´s professional invention consultants. You can talk about property rights, marketing tools or any other invention issues.

For further information please also visit the website www.world-ip-day.com

The importance of intellectual property intensive industries

Yesterday we told you about the World IP Day. Today we want to show you the importance of intellectual property intensive industries. As the United States Patent and Trademark Office announced in a press release according to a comprehensive report of the U.S. Commerce Department entitled “Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: Industries in Focus,” intellectual property (IP)-intensive industries support at least 40 million jobs and contribute more than $5 trillion dollars to, or 34.8 percent of, U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).


“This first of its kind report shows that IP- intensive industries have a direct and significant impact on our nation’s economy and the creation of American jobs,” said Commerce Secretary John Bryson. “When Americans know that their ideas will be protected, they have greater incentive to pursue advances and technologies that help keep us competitive, and our businesses have the confidence they need to hire more workers. That is why this Administration’s efforts to protect intellectual property, and modernize the patent and trademark system are so crucial to a 21st century economy that is built to last.”

While IP is used in virtually every segment of the U.S. economy, the report identifies the 75 industries that use patent, copyright, or trademark protections most extensively. These “IP-intensive industries” are the source – directly or indirectly – of 40 million jobs. That’s more than a quarter of all the jobs in this country. Some of the most IP-intensive industries include: Computer and peripheral equipment, audio and video equipment manufacturing, newspaper and book publishers, Pharmaceutical and medicines, Semiconductor and other electronic components, and the Medical equipment space.

The report has several important findings, including:

• IP-intensive industries contributed $5.06 trillion to the U.S. economy or 34.8 percent of GDP in 2010.

• 40 million jobs, or 27.7 percent of all jobs, were directly or indirectly attributable to the most IP-intensive industries in 2010.

• Between 2010 and 2011, the economic recovery led to a 1.6 percent increase in direct employment in IP-intensive industries, faster than the 1.0 percent growth in non-IP-intensive industries.

• Merchandise exports of IP-intensive industries totaled $775 billion in 2010, accounting for 60.7 percent of total U.S. merchandise exports.

A new IP Awareness Assessment Tool

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) unveiled a new web-based IP Awareness Assessment Tool designed to help manufacturers, small businesses, entrepreneurs and independent inventors easily assess their knowledge of intellectual property (IP).


Intellectual property is a key concern of small businesses owners, who can secure significant competitive advantages by exercising the rights they hold to their innovations. However, many individuals are often unaware of their rights and miss the opportunities they can provide. USPTO and NIST MEP developed the IP Awareness Assessment Tool as a way to help educate innovators about these rights.

The tool enables users to measure and increase their awareness of IP issues, relevant to their creative projects and business goals. Users answer a comprehensive set of questions regarding IP, after which the tool provides a set of training resources tailored to specifically identified needs.


Interested? The tool is available on USPTO’s website at http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/assessment/.