Salt Lake City, UT

The Salt Lake City PTRC is part of the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah. The Marriott Library was first designated a Patent Depository Library (PDL) in 1984 – trademarks were not yet a part of the Patent Depository program. In subsequent years we were renamed a Patent and Trademark Depository Library (PTDL), and now a Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC). The Marriott Library has been a Government Printing Office (GPO) depository since 1893; a U.S. Department of Energy depository; United Nations, European Union, World Trade Organization and UNESCO depository; and a depository for Utah State documents.

I am one of the Marriott Library’s federal documents librarians, our USPTO representative since 1987, and a member of PTRCA and earlier associations since my first conference in spring 1987. I have served the Association as Treasurer; Chair of the Finance Committee; and Chair of the Association in 1999/2000. I was selected as Thirteenth Patent Fellowship Librarian for the PTDL Program Office from 1996 to 1998, and worked at the former USPTO location in Crystal City, VA.

My primary assignments within the Marriott Library continue with our Research and Information Services group in the Knowledge Commons, providing reference and research information services to patrons. I also provide more specialized patent, trademark and government information reference to our patrons in person, by phone, email, and web service. My other major responsibility is team leader for our DOCMAP College and Interdisciplinary Team (CIT), which replaced the physical Government Documents and Maps Departments. The DOCMAP team continues developing our electronic, print and microfilm collections of government information, and presents training in how to use these resources to patrons across campus and state communities. Last spring we completed a major weeding, consolidation and remote storage project with all federal and international documents collections. As a result we now have a more usable and browseable print collection on open shelves. Those items we removed from open shelves will survive longer in the controlled climate of our Automated Resource Center (ARC) within the Library.

As the PTRC Representative and a member of our University Libraries Innovation Committee I help provide research assistance to students involved in our annual Bench2Bedside Competition and other innovative and entrepreneurial programs on campus. Librarians from the three campus libraries – Marriott, Quinney Law and Eccles Health Sciences – attend major activities of these programs throughout the year and support library guides for these activities.

I continue to teach patent searching to students and faculty in a number of campus programs: freshman and upper division bioengineering design students; ‘Bench2Bedside’ participants; Innovation Scholars; annual workshops offered by our Entrepreneurial Faculty Scholars; the Center for Medical Innovation (CMI), and presentations for our Research Administration Training Series (RATS) on patent searching and intellectual property. More about the B2B Competition, a short video and annual reports from the last two years are available at:

http://healthsciences.utah.edu/center-for-medical-innovation/students/bench-to-bedside.php

Thanks again to the Marriott Library administration for the continuing support of our PTRC Program!

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PATENTS AND THE MARRIOTT LIBRARY: PROMOTING INNOVATION AND BUSINESS STARTUPS

The patent and prior art resources from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Google Patents and Espacenet may be freely used to identify new commercial and licensing opportunities or to acquire a broad, ‘landscape’ view of the history and current state of important technologies. These patent tools uniquely combine the latest technical information along with commercial interest and ownership information. Dave Morrison, the Marriott Library’s expert on patent searching, has been providing research assistance for years to business owners as well as students, staff and faculty. He works closely with the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute and has a specialty focus in bioengineering, medical and business.
He may be reached by email at [email protected].