At the end of June 2017, we bid farewell to our long-time librarian, Arlene Nagamine, who retired after years of dutiful service.
In October, 2017 James Ko was hired as our library assistant but a few months later he accepted another position that came with a promotion and left.
I, Emily Dovermann, am the only staff member left. I have worked at the Hawaii State Library Federal Documents Section in the capacity of a patent and trademark, and federal documents librarian for 7 years, and in the capacity of a PTRC representative librarian for a year. I have been a librarian with the Hawaii State Public Library System for over 14 years.
While faced with severe staffing shortages brought on by a wave of retirements over a very short period of time, the year 2017 was an exceptionally busy year due to passport acceptance services. We have accepted a record number of 9,736 passport applications, a 34% increase from the previous year.
Due to staffing challenges and a surge in number of passport applications submitted at our library, we won’t be unable to participate in the annual PTRC training in April 2018.
Despite our busy daily passport routine, we strived to provide the usual patent and trademark services to the community. We provided numerous training sessions on patent and trademark searching to independent inventors and startups.
Our effort to promote intellectual property awareness in Hawaii continued. In April we celebrated World Intellectual Property Day with a seminar presented by IP attorney Tracey Ohta and registered patent attorney Seth Reiss. They presented an introduction to the basic types of intellectual property.
In October we hosted a seminar called “IP Strategy is a Business Strategy,” presented by West Coast Regional U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Cabeca. Due to time constraints, some participants’ questions were not answered completely during the seminar. After returning to California Director John Cabeca kindly continued to follow up with attendees, providing them further answers.
Both seminars were very well received and provided the participants with an insight into the process of obtaining a patent or trademark registration.
The Hawaii State Library Patent and Trademark Resource Center is located in the Federal Documents Section on the 2nd Floor of the Hawaii State Library. The Federal Documents Section houses a selective federal depository library, a Patent and Trademark Resource Center, a State of Hawaii Data Center Affiliate Library, and a passport acceptance service.
As the sole Patent and Trademark Resource Center in the Hawaii and Pacific Region, the Hawaii State Library PTRC supports the diverse intellectual property needs of the public. We work with independent inventors, small businesses, startups, entrepreneurs, students, researchers and the general public. Services are free and include individual and group training on patent and trademark searching, hosting public seminars on intellectual property topics and conducting outreach at community events.
We offer a designated workstation that provides access to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s web-based search systems as well as to the PubEAST database, the public version of the Examiner’s Automated Search Tool used by USPTO’s patent examiners for faster and more advanced searching.
Reference assistance and one-on-one instructions on how to perform a preliminary patent and trademark search are available during the library’s open hours. Group trainings are provided by appointment.
