Re: From Google: Free Bulk Data from US Patent and Trademark Office

[Aaron Swartz <xx@aaronsw.com>]

Man, they sure don't make it easy to mirror. Are you going to be
making a copy for resource.org?

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 3:03 PM, Carl Malamud <xxxxxxx@media.org> wrote:
> Hi -
> FYI, definitely worth grabbing a copy for yourselves. In theory (and I'm not
> vouching for this) the service will continue and will expand to about 70
> tbytes of patent data, no strings attached. I was not involved in the
> provisioning of this service and do not have a copy of the data. I've been
> in touch with Orwant, and I believe the intent is right on this one. Fingers
> crossed, but make a copy anyway.
> Carl
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Jake Hubert <xxxxxxx@google.com>
> Date: June 2, 2010 11:55:35 AM PDT
> To: Jake Hubert <xxxxxxx@google.com>
> Subject: From Google: Free Bulk Data from US Patent and Trademark Office
>
> Hi there,
>
> Google has just announced that we’ve worked with the United States Patent
> and Trademark Office (USPTO) to provide bulk patent and trademark data to
> the public, for free. Until now, USPTO’s public data in bulk form has been
> provided solely as a fee-based service. You can read more online from the
> USPTO’s press release and Google’s public policy blog (text below).
>
> Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
>
> Best wishes,
> Jake
> --
> Jake Hubert
> Global Communications and Public Affairs
> Google, Inc.
> Direct: 650-214-5273
> Mobile: 650-488-4807
>
> Free download: 10 terabytes of patents and trademarks
>
> Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 2:40 PM ET
>
> Posted by Jon Orwant, Engineering Manager
>
> When we launched Google Patent Search in 2006, we wanted to make it easier
> for people to understand the world of inventions, whether they were browsing
> for curious patents or researching serious engineering. Recently, we’ve also
> worked on a number of public data search features, as well as experimental
> features like the Public Data Explorer.
>
> There are many places to search for individual patents -- the US Patent and
> Trademark Office and Google Patent Search are two examples. But sometimes
> that’s not enough. If you’re trying to identify trends in innovation over
> time or analyze all the patents relevant to your invention, it helps to have
> all the patent data on hand. For example, the non-profit Cambia’s PatentLens
> creates topical analyses of patent information, and they can only do this
> with a comprehensive data set. Others have experimented with a variety of
> online mashups of the data, such as an interactive map showing the most
> innovative states.
>
> The trouble is, that’s a lot of information -- terabytes of it -- and in the
> past the only way to deliver that information was on DVDs and other physical
> media. The USPTO will ship them to you, and over the last decade Cambia
> alone has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this data. But with
> high-bandwidth connections on the rise, both the USPTO and Google think it’s
> time to help people download the bulk data directly.
>
> That’s why we’re proud to announce that the USPTO and Google are making this
> data available for free at http://www.google.com/googlebooks/uspto.html.
> This includes all granted patents and trademarks, and published applications
> -- with both full text and images. And in the future we will be making more
> data available including file histories and related data.
>
> We look forward to continuing to work with the USPTO and other public
> organizations to expand access to public data. You can read the official
> press release from the USPTO here.
>
>