I am working with inventors and students primarily by phone and email, assisting them in locating several relevant patents in Google Patents and then searching the related CPC and U.S. classifications using the patent databases at USPTO.
We hosted another program with the USPTO Regional Office in Dallas and the Tulsa City Library in the spring, Patents and Trademarks Explained. I provide a seminar on trademarks for the Food and Agricultural Products Center several times a year for entrepreneurs launching a food business or product. I offer a class each semester through the graduate college, Patents Online: Discover Trends in Research and Development, to encourage graduate students and faculty to consider and use patents as a tool for research, similar to journal articles. Patents issued to the University are included in ShareOK our institutional repository.
Our PTRC continues to play a support role to other IP departments on campus and locally in addition to working with students, faculty, and independent inventors.