12 December 2005. The University of Maryland University College (UMUC) offers an interactive tutorial that provides an introduction to issues concerning copyright ownership. It outlines the basic principles of copyright law in the U.S. To use it, you will need a Javascript enabled browser and the Macromedia Flash Player. 31 May 2002. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) offers its database of music copyright records. The database contains records about both U.S. and foreign compositions licensed by ASCAP. Search by title, writer, performer, publisher, or t-code to obtain matching copyright records. 31 May 2002. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) offers this database containing a partial list of restored works under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1992 (URAA). Revised 7 March 2003. Newly redesigned (Feb 2003), AdLaw offers commentary on advertising and intellectual property law issues. The Adlaw Handbook contains articles on advertising industry mergers and acquisitions, copyright, liability issues, mail fraud and more. Various newsletters cover advertising and intellectual property issues. Contract Forms provides several sample forms dealing with advertising and intellectual property transactions. The site is hosted by the law firm of Hall, Dickler, Kent, Goldstein & Wood, LLP. 24 January 2002. This site boasts a collection of over 5,000 legal forms -- about 2,000 of which are available for free to registered users. Coverage includes affidavits, applications, bankruptcy, business, corporation, divorce, leases, partnership, rent, statements, trademark, and trusts. Also find practical plain English articles from Nolo.com and a forms search feature. 11 February 2003. This group, whose members include Microsoft, IBM, the National Center for Public Policy Research, and the Washington Legal Foundation, opposes government involvement in technology solutions to digital piracy. Visitors may subscribe to receive regular updates about issues covered in fact sheets and other materials at the site. The site also offers background information and news. 23 January 2003. Revised 16 June 2003. Denise M. Howell, an attorney with Reed Smith (formerly, Crosby Heafey Roach & May), comments on a variety of legal issues related to intellectual property, Internet law, technology, and more. Denise cites her sources, which facilitates additional research. The RSS news feed appears to reproduce the entire blog entry. 20 December 1999. Cornell Legal Information Institute offers the full-text of this international convention as a searchable hypertext document. 23 January 2003. Revised 16 June 2003. Sabrina Pacifici, Editor of LLRX.com, comments on law and technology issues. These often comprise copyright, trademark, patent, and Internet law matters. Like, Tech Law Advisor, beSpacific cites its sources, making additional research easier. The RSS news feed appears to reproduce the entire blog entry. From the law offices of Beck & Tyvser, PLLP, this site offers commentary, sample forms and contracts, as well as annotated links to resources for all aspects of intellectual property law. 31 May 2002. The Canadian Intellectual Property Office offers a database of copyrights "[r]egistered or [e]xpunged since October 1, 1991. In some cases registrations prior to 1991 were entered into the database due to requests for certified copies." Search by title, author, or other criteria to obtain the copyright record. 20 December 1999. Revised 17 October 2000. The Canadian Intellectual Property Office offers this database of applications and patents. 20 December 1999. Revised 17 October 2000. The Canadian Intellectual Property Office offers this database of trademark data. 7 March 2002. Several law schools and the Electronic Frontier Foundation join to provide this database of cease & desist letters and information about intellectual property and free speech law. Browse by topic, or search the database, to find out who's sending and receiving cease & desist letters. The site uses the power of multimedia to link portions of the letters to relevant commentary. For example, it links any language that implies parody (e.g., "We have reviewed your website and have concluded that it incorporates the use and threat of violence towards the children’s character Barney without permission....") to the site's commentary about the legal definition of parody within the context of intellectual property. It also provides images of the original letter(s). While the database currently contains a small number of documents, it offers tremendous potential for investigative or legal research.
Those researching various intellectual property topics will like the links to related resources, news, and relevant cease & desist letters. 13 November 2001. Duke Law School makes papers from the recent Conference on the Public Domain available. These cover the theory and history of public domain, the state of public domain, fair use and appropriation, the challenge for science and innovation, the architecture of networks, and constitutional issues. 1 December 2005. K. Matthews Dames, President and Managing Partner of Seso Group LLC, a business and technology consulting firm, comments on copyright issues. Dames' blog goes beyond the usual brief references to current events and news items. Many of his comments could be re-published as short articles. Most include references to primary and related materials. RSS fans will also find a feed for keeping up to date with new comments. Stanford University Libraries offers this excellent source of primary law and current legislation pertaining to copyrights. 30 November 2004. The American Library Association's (ALA) Copyright Advisory Network is an open forum for the discussion of copyright issues. While librarians comprise the target audience, the forum is open to anyone who wants to join. Anonymous subscription is also an option. The network also provides links to a few select resources, including the ALA's companion Web site for the book Complete Copyright: An Everyday Guide for Librarians and the copyright code. 4 August 2005. Class counsel for In Re Literary Works In Electronic Databases Copyright Litigation provide this Web site for staying informed about the proposed settlement. It provides information about important dates, the notice of class action settlement, claims, exclusions, the publications that sold content to one or more online sources, the class counsel's fee petition and more. An FAQ answers questions such as "What is the lawsuit and settlement about?" It also provides a list of defendants and participating publishers 20 December 1999. The University of Texas Copyright Management Center offers this copyright law primer. 16 September 2004. This Congressional Budget Office report (August 2004) covers the copyright debate (Has "copyright law ... achieved the appropriate balance between incentives to engage in creative activity and the social benefits that arise from the widespread use of creative works?"), technological developments and challenges and the economics of regulation and proposed legislative action. It is available for reading on the Web or as a PDF download. 27 November 2007. The U.S. Copyright Office makes available Title 17 of the United States Code both as text (displayable in a browser) and PDF. You may download a PDF copy of the entire text or individual chapters. Appendices contain various copyright laws, including The Copyright Act of 1976, The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, The Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994, copyright-related sections of Titles 18 (Crimes), 28 (Judicial Procedure) and 44 (Public Printing), and more. Searching is available only through the site's search engine. 26 January 2006. Copyright expert, Kevin Dames, pens "the first [article] in a series that reviews several ways information professionals can use protected works freely without getting written permission from the copyright owner, signing a license, or working with a third-party publisher representative such as the Copyright Clearance Center. The goal of the series is to arm information professionals with the tools to help them analyze and properly use what federal law describes as 'limitations' on the exclusive rights that copyright owners receive." 20 December 1999. Part of the Groton Public Schools (Mystic, Connecticut) Copyright Implementation Manual, this frequently updated guide annotates Internet resources and provides commentary about primary documents. 5 June 2001. The Library of Congress offers an experimental Web-based database of copyright information. It does not yet replace the LOCIS System for advanced users available via Telnet.
The experimental project provides access to three types of copyright office records: registered works, serials (magazines, journals, newspapers, etc.) and documents (ownership transfers, name changes, etc.).
12 August 2004. The Cornell Copyright Information Center makes available a well-documented chart of copyright terms in the U.S. Covering unpublished works, works published in the U.S. and works published outside the U.S., the chart provides the copyright term or duration and a brief description of public domain materials as of 1 January 2004. This innovative site offers commentary on intellectual property events relating to visual, audio and digital arts. For example, learn about the IP dispute between Warner Brothers and Frederick Hart, the sculptor of the original art that appears in the office of the film's antagonist. The site also offers copyright basics and breaking news. 24 July 2002. Attorney/consultant Lesley Ellen Harris offers articles, news, and more pertaining to copyright legal issues. Find commentary on issues like licensing, re-using work, the value of content, and electronic commerce in government, libraries, archives and museums. Librarians and attorneys especially will find this site useful. 12 August 2004. Copyscape is a plagiarism research tool. Enter the address of Web page to receive search results from other pages that use similar terms in close proximity. While the utility has potential, its effectiveness depends on the uniqueness of the words on the page and how often the page is cited. Many results, in other words, come from Web pages that are not plagiarizing the work. 22 January 2003. Led by several Internet and intellectual property experts, Creative Commons offers model language for various copyright licenses. These are alternatives to the standard "all rights reserved." For example, the site offers model language for several types of attribution. During 2003, Creative Commons plans to launch "the Creative Commons Conservancy, a sort of 'land trust' for intellectual works. It will provide "widespread public access" for acquired or donated works "while safeguarding [them] against exploitive uses." 4 March 2008. Edited by University of Texas at Austin law librarian, Jane O'Connell, this resource helps legal professionals stay up to date with legal articles on trademark issues. The citation list appears in reverse chronological order. To display the first page of an article, follow the title link. Scanned images of the first page "will be deleted after 60 days." Lawyers and researchers may receive updates to the list via RSS. 22 January 2003. Beneath this cheeky title lies solid advice from intellectual property lawyer Martin Schwimmer. While commenting on an editorial that appeared in the Sacramento Bee, Schwimmer explains the complexity of trademark research. The commentary may be somewhat self-serving, but he is right.
27 October 2000. Formerly the IBM Intellectual Property Network at URL http://www.patents.ibm.com/, Delphion -- a new company formed by Internet Capital Group and IBM -- provides access to 1) patents issued in the United States (1971 to 1973, bibliographic; 1974 to present, full text and images), 2) European patent applications (1979 to present, bibliographic and full document images), 3) European patents (1980 to present, bibliographic and full document images) 4) Japanese unexamined patent applications (English, October 1976 to present, first page only), 5) WIPO Patent Cooperation Treaty documents (1990 to present, abstracts and full document images), and 6) INPADOC patent family and legal status information (1968 to present, bibliographic). 20 December 1999. Yahoo! News offers current industry news stories pertaining to copyright law. 25 March 2003. Find an online version of the treatise, Legal Protection of Digital Information, by Professor Lee A. Hollaar, School of Computing at the University of Utah. The online version is adapted from the BNA Books 2002 edition. Chapters include an overview of copyright law and issues, copyright of computer programs, copyright of digital information, an overview of patents and software-based inventions. Issues covered include reverse engineering, copyrighting source code, file sharing, technological protections, and more. Professor Hollaar was a technical consultant to the plaintiff states in the Microsoft antitrust litigation. 10 November 2003. Co-founded during March 2002 by Joseph Kraus, former president of Excite.com, DigitalConsumer.org is a consumer advocacy group that promotes fair-use rights to digital media. The Web site is a good source for current news about copyright. To this end, it recently added an RSS news feed. It also promotes the Consumer Technology Bill of Rights and offers an extensive question and answer section, which covers copyright law and legislation. 5 January 2000. nternet.com offers a tool for assisting in the creation of a domain name. Say your business, product or service name is Virtual Chase. Enter it and keywords that describe your business, product or service; e.g., legal research or law. Select the top level domain (.com, .org., etc.) and then submit the information to the wizard. Domain Name Wizard responds with unavailable domain names that match your criteria as well as suggestions for available domain names. VPOP Technologies, Inc. offers a great tool for common law trademark searching. Domain Surfer searches for word strings within a domain name. Unlike Whois, which limits domain name searching to exact matches, this tool finds matches buried within a domain. Domain Surfer provides results for registered domains in the .com, .net, and .org categories. It does not return results for domain with "on-hold" status. 5 January 2000. E-gineer.com, a technology Web site, offers this tool for locating domain names and federal trademarks. Enter a term or phrase to find domain name availability as well as domain names in use and registered federal trademarks (as retrieved from the USPTO's trademark database -- see limitations). 25 March 2003. This article appears in the Winter 2003 issue of The Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship. Written primarily for educators and librarians, it covers the the basics of copyright, including fair use, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the TEACH Act (copyright in the digital classroom). 27 January 2003. Revised 16 June 2003. Ernie the Attorney is Louisiana lawyer Ernest Svenson. Ernie comments on a variety of law and technology issues, including copyright, patent, trademark, and Internet law matters. He likes gadgets, so you will often find mention of the latest devices, software, or other new technology. The RSS news feed appears to reproduce the entire blog entry. 16 October 2003. The European Patent Office offers this database containing information from patent applications published in over 50 countries (and regions) worldwide. Search by keyword, patent application number or company to find abstracts and bibliographic information. Although a free search and retrieval site, the database features a shopping cart that lets you store search results. Site documentation indicates that this feature will soon allow you to order paper copies of patents, if desired. 14 February 2006. In part 3 of a series of articles on copyright issues for libraries, lawyer Kevin Dames discusses the first sale doctrine. "Generally, 'first sale' allows anyone who rightfully and legal owns a copy of a protected work to resell, rent, or lend that copy to another person or entity.... Over the last decade, however, several changes have occurred that threaten first sale's future viability." Dames provides a detailed overview of the issues. This site offers the most comprehensive collection of IP links available on the Internet. 8 October 2002. NameProtect offers a free search interface to U.S. federal, Canadian, and European trademarks, as well as to select domain records from WHOIS databases. Search one database at a time. The site also offers useful help documentation. 6 September 2000. The International Trademark Association offers brief reviews of government databases for trademark searching. Currently, it covers Australia, Canada, the European Community, Japan, Hungary, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States. 7 March 2002. Gilbert & Tobin is an Australian corporate, technology and communications law firm. It provides full-text copies of articles covering timely issues in competition law, business law, intellectual property, tax law, and more. From the home page, select the Publications tab. 19 June 2002. Revised 25 June 2007. Appears to be an abandoned Web site. The law firm Baker & McKenzie offers an email alert service, with accompanying searchable Web archive, covering U.S., foreign, and international legal developments in the areas of electronic commerce, intellectual property, telecommunications, jurisdiction, and privacy. 22 February 2005. The Invent Blog makes available a briefly annotated list of Web sources for downloading multi-page TIFF or PDF copies of patents or patent applications. 5 May 2004. This WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) database contains information about industrial designs submitted in accordance with the Hague System for the International Deposit of Industrial Designs. Covering 1999 to present, the database provides bibliographic information as well as reproductions of industrial designs published in the International Designs Bulletin. The database offers two search interfaces for advanced and novice searchers. It supports Boolean as well as proximity and field searching. 25 August 2005. Don't let the cryptic title of this database put you off. It might be quite useful in prior art research pertaining to health-related patents. Developed by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) of India, it provides summaries of public domain knowledge concerning the medicinal value of plants. Search by a variety of criteria, including keyword, biology, chemistry or medicinal property. Each summary includes references. 23 July 2003. Jonathan Bender, a Washington, D.C. area lawyer, whose clients include emerging high technology companies, blogs about technology and intellectual property issues. Entries are infrequent compared to other blogs. They are, however, informative, particularly concerning new decisions from the courts. Topics covered include the Communications Decency Act (CDA), domain names, Internet jurisdiction, metatags and open source. The RSS news feed provides headline and partial lead paragraph. 7 February 2006. The United Kingdom Department for Constitutional Affairs publishes this journal to provide information rights practitioners with a round up of the latest developments in the information rights field. In addition to news and developments, the current issue contains commentary on the principle of Neither Confirm nor Deny (NCND) or the practice of responding to difficult questions from the press by neither confirming nor denying the allegations. 8 October 2002. The International Trademark Association provides a list of about "3,000 registered trademarks and service marks with their generic terms and indicates capitalization and punctuation." Intended for use by authors, editors, journalists, and fact checkers, the list does not comprise a complete accounting of all trademarks. The list appears in alphabetical order with the mark in bolded text, following by a brief description of the product. 20 December 1999. Part of Professor Michael Rappa's E-Commerce at North Carolina State University Web site, this section provides a brief essay on intellectual property as well as links to several excellent articles and publications. 13 December 2000. This United Kingdom government-sponsored portal site, offers basic information about copyright, trademark, and patent issues. For instance, find answers to common questions like "How do I get protection for my idea/material?" or "Do I always need permission to use [someone else's] IP?"
In the "Resources & Links" section of this Web, find more commentary relating to various intellectual property issues as well as links to additional resources. In addition to copyrights, trademarks, and patents, the portal covers intellectual property issues relating to databases, trade secrets, performers rights, designs, and more. 7 January 2004. The Governments of the Guangdong Province, Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Region provide gateway access to intellectual property databases in their regions. The databases cover trademarks, patents, registered designs and copyright. A table indicates whether a specific database is available for a particular region. It also explains the contents of the database (e.g. trademark law, trademark search). The information is available in English. 5 March 2003. The Intellectual Property Digital Library provides access to various intellectual property data collections currently hosted by the World Intellectual Property Organization. Collections include the Hague Express Database, JOPAL (Journal of Patent Associated Literature), Madrid Express Database and PCT Gazette Database. The site offers two levels of free access: membership and guest. Guest users cannot take advantage of a search history feature.
The Hague Express Database provides bibliographical information about reproductions of industrial designs relating to international deposits recorded in the International Register and published in the International Designs Bulletin. JOPAL, or the Journal of Patent Associated Literature, contains bibliographic data about articles published in leading scientific and technical periodicals since 1981. Updated daily, Madrid Express Database contains international registrations currently in force, or which have expired within the past six months. PCT Gazette Database contains the first page data (bibliographic data, abstract and drawing) of published applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty 29 June 2004. LexisNexis offers this resource containing news summaries and select publication updates pertaining to intellectual property law issues. News topics include copyright, patent and trademark law issues. Publication updates include updates to Chisum on Patents, Entertainment Industry Contracts, Trademark Protection and Practice, and others. Use of the site is free and all information appears in full-text. 7 February 2006. Established in 1972, the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) is a U.S. trade association for owners of patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. There is a special area of the Web site that requires membership. For free, visitors will find weekly summaries of intellectual property-related news. News summaries cover lawsuits and court decisions, legislation, policy and other related events. You will find a detailed outline of intellectual property related legislative issues with links to the relevant documents as well as various IPO publications. One publication of possible interest to our readers is the group's annual compilation of top patent owners. 29 June 2004. U.S. Customs and Border Protection makes available a database of intellectual property rights recordations. Search by keyword, owner, product, lawyer or law firm or other criteria to find trademarks, copyrights or patents recorded by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The search results display in a table, which reveals effective dates, service product name, service or product description, owner, filing contact and firm, recordation number and type of recordation. You can limit search results to trademarks, copyrights, patents or exclusion orders. You can also exclude expired recordations. 10 November 2003. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) offers information about the international classification of patents, trademarks and industrial designs. Find the treaties that established the classifications as well as explanatory materials and the text of the international classifications. The documents are available in English and French. 15 January 2008. The University of Maryland and the Maryland Technology Development Corp. offer a database on technologies available for commercialization from academic institutions, federal research facilities and private companies in Maryland, D.C., and Virginia. Search by keyword or institution to find descriptive summaries of the available technologies. Summaries are available as Web pages or in PDF. 26 February 2004. A portal for inventors, InventNET offers several resources of potential interest to researchers. Find a tutorial on how to conduct a patent search, an index of patent forms on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web site, a patent attorney directory and more. 2 August 2001. The National Academies, advisers to Congress on scientific issues, offers a site devoted to intellectual property issues. Find National Academies' reports, which you can read online (free) or purchase in paper form, an electronic alert service, and an electronic discussion group. The site covers topics pertaining to antitrust, copyright, database protection, international harmonization, licensing, dispute resolution, patent administration, trade secrets, and trademarks. 17 October 2000. The Commonwealth of Australia offers information about patents, trade marks, designs ("the shape or appearance of manufactured goods"), copyright, circuit layout rights ("the 3-dimensional configuration of electronic circuits in integrated circuit products or layout designs"), plant breeder's rights, trade secrets, and business, company and domain names. The site also provides search access to Australian patents, trade marks and designs. 16 October 2003. German patent attorney Axel Horns comments on intellectual property issues concerning the European Union and member countries as well as the World Intellectual Property Organization. Many of the comments link directly to original documents or sources. A sidebar provides links to many resources of potential interest to intellectual property lawyers with a need for documents and information outside of the United States. 3 April 2001. This is a new Active Service Provider (ASP), by PatentCafe, that interfaces with patent and trademark databases and enables time billing. 18 March 2003. Patent attorney and law professor Gene Quinn comments on cases and other news pertaining to intellectual property, Internet and antitrust law. The site also offers a weekly newsletter by email. 25 August 2005. The database contains bibliographic information on articles published in leading scientific and technical periodicals since 1981. Search by keyword to find matching citations. The database supports Boolean, phrase and field searching as well as some proximity searching. Bibliographic information provided includes the relevant International Classification. 7 June 2001. Intellectual property lawyer Margie S. Schweitzer offers this Web site and email newsletter devoted to intellectual property legal information. The twice-weekly email newsletter contains articles, case summaries, and information about recent developments in Internet, trademark, copyright, patent and trade secrets law. Each issue includes links to cases discussed, when available, as well as articles written by IP professionals. While the email newsletters is not free, you may try it free for two months.
Additionally, the Web site offers articles and case summaries that have appeared in earlier editions of the newsletter. It also provides links to several important IP legal documents.
4 April 2005. Robert J. Kasunic, senior attorney and principal legal advisor at the U.S. Copyright Office, provides an up-to-date directory of resources on copyright law and litigation. It covers general reference materials, legislation, lawsuits, articles on copyright issues, resources for several intellectual property issues (including trademarks, entertainment law and domain names), Copyright Office reports, database protection and more. 23 August 2005. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) offers information about liability issues for bloggers. The guide provides an overview of common legal issues for those who post public comments, several FAQs covering intellectual property issues, online defamation law, Section 230 protections and privacy issues. It also provides information for bloggers who act as journalists; that is, bloggers who report news gathered from confidential sources or those who want to secure access to information as media. 8 November 2007. The Citizen Media Law Project, jointly affiliated with Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Center for Citizen Media, makes available a database of information about legal threats. Threats include intellectual property infringement lawsuits, cease and desist letters, defamation actions, civil rights actions, and more. You may search by a variety of criteria including the type of threat, the parties involved, lawyers' names, verdict or settlement amounts, jurisdiction (not limited to the U.S.), Web sites involved, keyword and more. The information provided includes all the above that is relevant as well as the current status and a summary of the threat. 14 February 2006. In part 4 of a series of articles on copyright issues for libraries, lawyer Kevin Dames "discusses Section 108 of the 1976 Copyright Act, which generally lets libraries and archives make and distribute copies of protected works for preservation and scholarly purposes." Dames provides a detailed overview of eligibility and other requirements. 22 February 2005. ntellectual property lawyer Ronald Coleman comments on developments in trademark, copyright and trade secret law, as well as law involving Internet issues such as branding, media, blogging and free speech. He notes that his comments are not for those already versed in intellectual property law. The Weblog has an Atom feed. 19 November 2003. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) maintains this database, which includes international registrations currently in force or that have expired within the past six months. Search criteria includes the international registration number, holder name, representative, mark, Vienna Classification, Nice Classification, goods and services (English or French), office of origin, basic application number, basic registration number and designated contracting parties. You can create a free account, which lets you save your queries. 28 October 2002. International law firm Osborne Clarke Alliance offers information "for brand-owners and marketing professionals, including in-depth analysis of the latest marketing and brand law issues, national and international case reports, previews of up-and-coming legislation affecting marketing, plus legal checklists and template agreements." Parts of the site require registration, but access to many of the articles does not. Many of the article pertain to European Union law, but some cover other jurisdictions worldwide. 3 May 2000. Subtitled The Intellectual Property Portal, MarksOnline offers various resources and services related to trademarks. It provides interfaces to the USPTO Web Trademark Database and Network Solutions' Whois database, a fee-based domain name monitoring service, federal, state, and U.K. trademark registration forms, a feature for searching the International Classification of Goods and Services, industry news, and more.
While on the whole the site offers useful services and information, I caution researchers to evaluate independently its referrals to external resources. The site provides a list of links to international trademark laws, for example, with no information about their completeness, timeliness, or authority. I also encountered a javascript error message with each page I visited. Clicking on "yes" in the alert box allows you to proceed. 20 December 1999. A subsidiary of Information Holdings, Inc., MicroPatent offers patent and trademark information services. 25 February 2000. This site provides one of the few domain name search engines that retrieves .edu registrations in addition to the usual, .com, .org, and .net. It also found possible matches when I entered a phrase rather than a string of characters (e.g., enter virtual chase instead of virtualchase). n@medroppers.com also searches for matching strings within a domain name, something Whois alone cannot achieve (e.g., finds domains like businessresearcher.com upon a search for researcher).
As if these features aren't sufficient, the site offers an advanced query page whereby researchers may exclude terms (e.g., search for law within a domain name, but not lawyer or lawyers).
Upon finding a match, researchers may then click on the Whois link to read the domain registration record.
11 April 2000. Need an eye-catching memorable domain name? This tool may assist.
Enter one or two words, select the concept that best describes your Web site, business, service, etc., and then check whether you want .com, .net. or .org, a domain name that rhymes with the keywords you enter, or includes hyphens, or that is available for sale. Nameboy quickly runs a search and returns results.
To test it, I entered "virtual" as the primary keyword and "chase" as the secondary term, clicked .com and domains for sale, and limited the concept to "Information, News." Nameboy found registered domain names and told me who owned them. It also found numerous domains for sale that use either "virtual" or "chase" in the name and suggested several new ones. My favorite recommendation was virtualbroadside.com (I suppose if I wanted folks to come crashing into the site. Never mind.).
Looking to do business with "providers of hosting, ISP, domain registration and brokering, legal, office product and business portal offerings," nameboy provides a unique and interesting software tool. 4 May 2000. This commercial site offers fee-based trademark search services including a pre-screening online database and various in-depth research services. To promote its services, it offers a free domain name watch service. The watch service offers an email report that reveals similar domain name registrations, similar trademarks, similar domains for sale, and other information. 16 October 2000. FindLaw offers news and legal documents pertaining to the Napster litigation. Find oral arguments (MP3 audio) before the Ninth Circuit, briefs, district and circuit court rulings, commentary, and an index of Napster sites. 23 July 2003. Well-known technology lawyer Dennis Kennedy offers this collection of research starting points for finding information about open source licensing. The collection includes information for lawyers as well as technicians. This is part of a larger Web site on technology resources. 26 February 2004. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office offers a database covering patent assignments recorded since August 1980. You can search by a variety of criteria, including patent number or assignor or assignee name. You can also click the link for an assignor's or assignee's name in any record to find a history (from mid-1980) of assignments. 4 August 2005. Attorneys Stephen Albainy-Jenei and Karlyn Schnapp of the law firm, Frost Brown Todd LLC in Cincinnati, OH, blog about intellectual property issues in the biotech and pharmaceutical fields. Current commentary concerns Brazil's threat to break a patent held by Abbot Laboratories and the rejected Lipitor patent. The blog features feeds available in several formats. 12 December 2005. Sponsored by Open Source Development Labs, the Web site hosts databases containing patents and technical standards available for open source use. "The Patent Commons website will catalogue existing patent commitments from companies and individuals who wish to retain ownership of their patents, and will provide information about different types of pledges and covenants and how they work. In the coming months, the site will expand to include other legal solutions that benefit the open source community, including open source licenses, indemnification programs and information for organizations and individuals who wish to contribute to the commons." 7 October 2004. Patent law Weblog Patently Obvious (see separate annotation) outlines sources for finding news about patents and patent-related issues. In addition to secondary sources such as several select Weblogs, it covers primary sources such as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. 30 November 2004. Patent Attorney Bob Shaver (Dykas, Shaver & Nipper, LLP in Boise, Idaho) spotlights certain inventions and educates--sometimes humorously--about the patent process. This Weblog has an email notification service and an RSS news feed. 26 August 2003. Maryland attorney Joseph Gusmano comments on news and court decisions pertaining to patents. Helpfully, he provides links to the court opinions, and other primary documents, he mentions. Gusmano also authors a blog on trademark law. The RSS news feed provides headlines and partial commentary with links to the full-text. 25 August 2004. Tutorial and Guide to Online Resources and Information: McKinney Engineering Library at University of Texas at Austin offers a guide of exceptional quality for those new to patent searching. Available in three parts, the guide provides a short treatise on patents as well as two interactive searching tutorials. The treatise explains why patent searching is important. It defines different types of patents, describes what is patentable and identifies patent myths. The search tutorials cover the basics of patent searching and patent application searching. The one on patent searching discusses brainstorming, using the Index to the U.S. Patent Classification, looking up classification codes, reviewing classification definitions, examining individual patents, keyword searching and additional practical advice. 20 December 1999. Nolo Press offers commentary on various intellectual property issues. 24 January 2001. Find an excellent portal site for information relating to patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, digital rights management, and more. More than an index to other intellectual property sites, PatentCafe.com offers directories of design engineers, licensing agents, patent attorneys, and others who may assist inventors. It also provides easy-to-read FAQs that explain the basics about various types of intellectual property. Read the trademark FAQ, for example, to discover the difference between a trademark and a service mark. The site's Media Reference Desk offers story ideas and speaker bios. Registered users may search the site's patent prior art database. 1 December 2005. Dennis Crouch, patent attorney at the law firm, McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP, comments on patent issues. The commentary goes beyond what you read in the news. Crouch discusses current patent claims, cases, legislation and more. 5 May 2004. This WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) database contains information about international patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). Covering 1997 to present, the database provides bibliographic information, including abstracts, drawings and images of PCT pamphlets. From April 1988 to present, claims and descriptions also appear for published or republished applications. The database offers three search interfaces for advanced and novice searchers. It supports Boolean and field searching. 16 September 2004. Librarian Sharon Stoerger, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, maintains an annotated bibliography of articles and other resources covering plagiarism. The extensive bibliography includes resources for instructors and resources for students as well as linked citations for relevant case studies, plagiarism detection tools and examples of term paper sites. 11 January 2005. While promoting the services and technologies of Turnitin and iThenticate, the Web site provides information and statistics about plagiarism. Under the heading Research Resources, students and teachers will find helpful information for avoiding plagiarism. This includes handouts you can download and print (Word format) that define plagiarism, give examples of types of plagiarism and explain citations. 25 August 2004. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office maintains Public PAIR (Patent Application and Information Retrieval), a utility for finding and displaying information and documents pertaining to patent applications not covered by confidentiality laws. This research system also enables online ordering of certified copies of patent applications.
Searching PAIR requires an application, patent or publication number. Use the established Published Applications database (Patent Full-Text and Full-Page Image Databases) to find applications by keyword. PAIR provides a lot of potentially useful information, including the name of the patent examiner and PDF images of documents filed during the application process.
Caution: The Norton Personal Firewall 2004 interferes with the operation of PAIR. If you use this software, you might have to disable it to access and search the utility. The Law Office of Lloyd L. Rich, Denver, Colorado, offers articles and an email notification service about publishing law issues. Recent articles cover the importance of contract "material terms" and Web linking. 15 September 2005. Three intellectual property lawyers -- J. Matthew Buchanan, Stephen Nipper and Douglas Sorocco -- discuss developments in copyright, trademark and patent law. They also created RSS news feeds for news from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. 8 October 2002. SchwimmerLegal offers a meta search tool for conducting exact match queries in the trademark databases of multiple countries. This utility finds trademarks that match at least one word of your query exactly. In other words, it is not a substitute for a due diligence investigation of potentially conflicting marks. 15 September 2005. "Scribes was established in August 1953 to promote better writing across the legal community -- in the courthouse, the law office, the publishing house, and the law school." The Web site provides information about the organization, its members, activities and publications. You will find the table of contents for The Scribes Journal as well as the full-text of the newsletter, The Scrivener. Technical note: We experienced trouble displaying parts of the site in Firefox. 26 January 2006. Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP!) is a multi-government agency initiative "designed to crack down on the networks that traffic in counterfeit and pirated products ... and help American businesses ... enforce their rights...." The Web site mostly explains what the initiative is and links to external sources of information. It helps users find resources, including an online complaint form. 11 January 2005. The Writing Center and the Mantor Library at the University of Maine at Farmington maintain this resource on plagiarism. Designed as a self-paced tutorial, it defines plagiarism, explains how to give credit when you use someone else's work, outlines various citation styles, discusses how to avoid plagiarism and explains what constitutes copyright under U.S. law. 23 January 2003. Revised 16 June 2003. Attorney Kevin Heller comments on copyright, trademark, parody, fair use, and technology law issues. His comments consist of short remarks on news items, court decisions, Web sites, and more. Moreover, he links to sources so that you can continue to research whatever strikes your fancy. The RSS news feed appears to reproduce the entire blog entry. 29 April 2000. Revised 18 April 2008. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's trademark database provides access to pending, registered, and dead federal trademarks. Various search options exist, including keyword searching, Boolean, and field searching. The site offers good help documentation, which is well worth reading. It also documents known problems with the database. While TESS provides potential trademark owners with a free option for conducting preliminary trademark research, it is not an easy database to use. Nor does it always provide consistent results. 14 February 2003. Revised 2 September 2005. Powered by ThomasRegister and ThomasRegional, ThomasNet provides information for both industrial suppliers and buyers. You may find information about U.S. and Canadian companies and their brands. The site enables searching by company name, product or service, or brand name. It provides business contact information, Web site, brief business description, number of employees, year founded, export markets, import markets, and more. Please note the new domain. A leader in trademark and copyright information, Thomson & Thomson offers its services via this Web site. Arvic Search Services, Inc. offers low-cost common law trademark research services. This is not an online database, but a research service.
Those conducting their own research will find useful resources here. For example, The Basics provides tips for conducting common law trademark research and suggestions for resources. The vendor also offers several detailed research guides. Revised 30 April 2004. Attorney R. Mark Halligan offers an excellent collection of articles and other information about trade secrets. The Trade Secrets Case Law Database lets you search for information about published cases on trade secrets issues. Entries include case caption, legal citation and case description. The Trade Secrets Law Forum contains postings on new cases, events in the news and other developments. While the content is well worth a visit, the site displayed poorly on my laptop. Small (high) resolutions might notice some text overlap, but everything seemed to function and I was able to find my way around. 7 January 2004. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office makes available this database of trademark assignments back to 1955. Search by a variety of criteria, including assignor or assignee name, applicant name or registrant name. Information provided includes the name of the owner, the mark and the serial and registration number. Follow the serial or registration number link to find the Trademark Assignment Abstract of Title. It contains information about the registrant and assignments, including the date recorded, the type of conveyance, the assignee and correspondent. You can find a history of all agreements (back to 1955) between the two parties by clicking through on the assignee name. 22 January 2003. Revised 16 June 2003. Intellectual property lawyer Martin Schwimmer comments on trademark-related events and issues. One of my favorite postings explains the importance and complexity of trademark searching. The news feed provides the headline and lead sentence. 4 April 2005. This portal of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office provides access to electronic documents associated with U.S. trademark applications, applications for extensions of protection and U.S. trademark registrations. It also contains information concerning international registrations and applications for international registration filed under the Madrid system through the United States.
The conversion of trademark records to digital format will take several years. Currently, TDR provides access to most pending applications and Madrid Protocol filings, as well as many trademark registrations. Search by U.S. serial, registration or reference number, or by international registration number. 26 August 2003. Maryland attorney Joseph Gusmano comments on news as well as court and administrative decisions pertaining to trademark law. Helpfully, he provides links to the court opinions, and other primary documents, he mentions. Gusmano also authors a blog on patent law. The RSS news feed provides headlines and partial commentary with links to the full-text. 11 September 2002. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office offers a database for discovering the status of a trademark application. Enter a serial or registration number to find the registration status. 19 November 2003. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) maintains this system, which allows users to view images of documents concerning trademark disputes. TTABVUE includes images of most documents filed since January 2003. Some earlier records covering the period June 2001 to January 2003 also are available. Access is available only by entering a TTAB proceeding number. 5 February 2002. BotTechnology.com, in partnership with Intelliseek and Answerpal, offer this subscription tracking service for monitoring trademark use on the Web. Covering eight types of resources -- domain names, publications and catalogs, message boards, the publicly-accessible Web, newspapers, Usenet, Web feeds, and trademark databases -- TrademarkBots.com searches for potential infringements based upon your criteria. Some of its information sources include Network Solutions Whois database, Canadian, United Kingdom, and United States trademark databases, Google Groups, Board Reader, Motley Fool, and other message boards, many regional, national, and specialty news sources, various trade magazines, DayPop, Moreover, and other blog and news Web feeds, Google, AltaVista, and many other search engines. The bot reports back with matching results based upon the frequency you set. Some of the more interesting finds on bots I established for The Virtual Chase include use of the key phrase for generating advertising at major search engines. Currently, the site offers a 21-day free trial period. 20 May 2003. The Cornell Legal Information Institute, The Markle Foundation and the Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution offer this database, which contains decisions from several sources, including the National Arbitration Forum and the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center. Find the names of the parties, the domain name and registrar, a procedural history, the factual background, the respective parties' contentions, a discussion and findings of the panel as well as the panel's decision. Advanced search features enable several limiting options, including by date, trademark, respondent's interest, bad faith allegations or outcome. 15 September 2005. Intellectual property law blog, rethink(ip) created 4 RSS feeds for those who want to follow developments at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Find feeds for Official Gazette and Federal Register announcements, as well as patent, trademark and general news items. 14 February 2006. This is part two of a series of articles on copyright issues for libraries and schools. Lawyer Kevin Dames explains Section 110 of the Copyright Act, which "generally allows teachers to use copyrighted works in the classroom without first having to get the owner's permission..." But don't stop reading here. The article provides useful information for teachers and instructors. 11 September 2002. Pierce Intellectual Property Mall provides select copies of the decisions of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office commissioner. Formats include PDF and HTML. While visitors may browse the collection, the site offers no search function. 20 December 1999. Revised 13 November 2000. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office offers two patent databases covering 1790 to present. The Bibliographic Database provides front page information for quick retrieval. The Full-Text Database offers the complete patent image. While serious researchers should read the site documentation about limitations concerning the databases, as of the date of this writing, they include:
* No assignment changes;
* Only two searchable fields for patents issued from 1790 to 1975; these include the patent number and U.S. classification. 27 February 2001. A joint project of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Reading Library, Reading, England, the WATCH database contains "the names and addresses of copyright holders or contact persons for authors and artists whose archives are housed, in whole or in part, in libraries and archives in North America and the United Kingdom." Search by writer/artist, contact name, or notes (keyword in notes field); or browse by writer/artist last name. (Note: the above URL, owned by the Library of the University of Reading, redirects to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center.) 26 August 2003. A staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and fellow with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, Wendy Seltzer comments on copyright issues. Select entries cover fair use, peer-to-peer systems and licensing. The RSS news feed appears to provide the full-text commentary. 22 February 2005. The Translation Station, a translation and interpretation services firm, offers this search tool for finding patent, trademark or copyright cases pending in federal courts. You may search by case type and party name, court, state or date to find basic case information. There is a charge to retrieve full-text court dockets. However, the information provided is sufficient for retrieval via the less expensive U.S. Party/Case Index. 11 September 2002. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) provides a database of UDRP (Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy) cases and panel decisions. Search by WIPO case number, disputed domain name, or keyword to find a case summary, domain names involved, complainants, respondents, and the result of the decision. Click the hyperlinked result to find the full-text of the decision. 23 August 2005. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) offers the 2nd edition of this guide to intellectual property law around the world. It is undated, but according to the preface, incorporates amendments received by 23 January 2003. The guide contains country profiles, including a legislative profile, information about the administration of intellectual property rights, authorities, educational institutions and statistics. |
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