How to Search for Rice Patents

Have you ever wanted to find the patents assigned to Rice University? Or perhaps do a patent search of recent Rice research? It's something we do fairly often here in the PTRC. If you open Patent Public Search, click start search, all you need to do is make sure you have the right terms entered in the search query box:

"Rice University".an.

Rice patents using Patent Public Search

By enclosing Rice University in double quotation marks, you are telling the search engine that those words need to be used as a phrase in all results. This works across most search tools. In Patent Public Search, you can specify which field of a patent you want to search using a field code suffix. In this case, we used .an. to indicate assignee name. The periods preceding and following the code are extremely important; omitting either one will invalidate the strategy. Combining the two elements--quotation marks and a field code suffix--commands the search engine to look only for that exact phrase within assignee names.

Not a huge fan of Patent Public Search? It's similar on many commercial patent search sites.

If you use Free Patents Online, the search query entered would be:

AN/"Rice University"

Rice patents using Free Patents Online

Quotation marks are used the exact same way as above. The only difference is in the code used to specify assignee name. FPO places a field code first, followed by a slash, and then the term(s) to find in the specified section of a patent. 

For those who are feeling particularly advanced, you might like Lens.org. A convenient list of field codes isn't provided, but using trial and error, we learned that you can define your own, and have to use owner instead of assignee:

owner:"Rice University"

Rice patents from Lens.org

Once more, the double quotation marks ensure that whole phrase must be found together.

However, Lens.org warned that just using 'owner' wasn't sufficient for a field. It suggested expanding to encompass the whole name:

owner_all.name:"Rice University"

Suggesting better searches

Last thing to remember: for patents from early Rice days, you need to use Rice Institute instead of University.

If you want to use Google Patents, you'll have to figure that one out alone.

Request to Testify at Hearing Re. Identification of Attributable Owner of a Patent

The following is a summary of Federal Register Notice Volume 79, Number 48 (Wednesday, March 12, 2014)] concerning extending the period of request to testify at public hearings regarding identification of attributable owner:

SUMMARY: The United States Patent and Trademark Office (Office) published a notice on January 24, 2014, proposing changes to the rules of practice to require that the attributable owner, including the ultimate parent entity, be identified during the pendency of a patent application and at specified times during the life of a patent, and seeking written comments on the proposed changes. This initiative is one of a number of executive actions issued by the Administration that are designed to ensure issuance of the highest-quality patents, enhance competition by providing the public with more complete information about the competitive environment in which innovators operate, improve market efficiency for patent rights by making patent ownership information more readily and easily available, reduce abusive patent litigation by helping the public defend itself against frivolous litigation, and level the playing field for innovators. The Office published a notice on February 20, 2014 indicating that it was conducting two public hearings to introduce the proposed changes anddirectly receive feedback from the public. The notice published on February 20, 2014 also extended the period for comment on the proposed rules until April 24, 2014. The Office is now extending the deadline for requesting to testify at either public hearing until March 12,2014.

DATES: Public Hearing Dates: The first public hearing will take place on March 13, 2014, from 1 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) until 4 p.m. EDT, in Alexandria, Virginia.

The second public hearing will take place on March 26, 2014, from 9 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) until noon PDT, in San Francisco, California.

Requests To Provide Oral Testimony: Those wishing to provide oral testimony must submit a request to do so in writing no later than March 12, 2014. Members of the public who wish to attend solely to observe need not submit a request to attend.

For more information visit http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-03-12/html/2014-05281.htm

Attributable Owner of a Patent

The February 20, 2014 Federal Register contains a proposed rule regarding public hearings and an extension of the comment period on the proposed changes to require identification of the attributable owner of a patent. The summary is as follows:

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (Office) published a notice on January 24, 2014, proposing changes to the rules of practice to require that the attributable owner, including the ultimate parent entity, be identified during the pendency of a patent application and at specified times during the life of a patent, and seeking written comments on the proposed changes. This initiative is one of a number of executive actions issued by the Administration that are designed to ensure issuance of the highest-quality patents, enhance competition by providing the public with more complete information about the competitive environment in which innovators operate, improve market efficiency for patent rights by making patent ownership information more readily and easily available, reduce abusive patent litigation by helping the public defend itself against frivolous litigation, and level the playing field for innovators. The Office is conducting two public hearings to discuss these proposed changes. The public hearings are an additional way for the Office to introduce the proposed changes and directly receive feedback from the public. The Office also is extending the period for public comment on the proposed changes until April 24, 2014, to provide interested members of the public with additional time to submit written comments.

For more information access http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-02-20/html/2014-03629.htm