Malamud asks VP to put Patent/Trademark Database on Internet

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

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Info-Policy-Notes | News from Consumer Project on Technology
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May 4, 1998

	Crown Jewels: Patent and Trademark Data

Carl Malamud, an MIT visiting professor and the President of the
Internet Multicasting Service, is asking Vice President Al Gore and
Department of Commerce Secretary William Daley to get the lead out and
put the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) databases on patents and
trademarks on the Internet.  A few years back Carl received an NSF grant
to put the SEC's EDGAR database of corporate disclosure filings on the
Internet.  To force the SEC to put its own database on an SEC Web page,
Carl announced he would end his project after 2 years, and he let data
users lobby the SEC to do its job.  Today you can search the SEC's EDGAR
database from 

	http://www.sec.gov/edaux/searches.htm


The PTO's patent and trademark databases are among the most conspicuous
"crown jewels" not available to the public (along with federal court
opinions) from a government web site.  IBM provides free public access
to some patent data (abstracts and image files, but not the full text),
but this poses some obvious problems, since IBM can tell which patents
other firms are looking at.  Trademark data is still not on the web. 

Carl is now proposing to buy the trademark database, and if he can pay
the huge fees that the Clinton Administration charges for the patent
database, but that on the web as well.  Then, after a year, he says he
will pull the plug, give everyone Al Gore's email address, and let the
Clinton/Gore Administration explain why they can't figure out a way to
give small businesses, students, scientists and journalists access to
these important databases.  (See:
http://www.sjmercury.com/breaking/docs/078699.htm)

Here is the URL for Carl's letter.
  
   Jamie Love

http://important.national.resource.org/


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