The Oklahoma State University Library has been a Patent and Trademark Depository Library since 1956. We are housed in the main University Library and are part of the Government Documents Department, a regional depository for federal government documents. Our OSU patents website includes most of our service information and links to information for inventors at USPTO: https://info.library.okstate.edu/patent-and-trademark-resource-center
We are enthusiastic about working with the USPTO Texas Regional Office and are looking forward to an IP program with them in Tulsa in 2017. As a large campus in a small town with limited parking opportunities, I am continuing to explore how to best make their webinars a possibility for the surrounding community.
I am working with independent inventors primarily by phone and email, having them do a keyword search in Google Patents on their own to locate several relevant patents. They email these numbers to me and we then work together to identify relevant CPC and U.S. classifications which they search on the USPTO website.
Our PTRC continues to play a support role to other IP departments on campus in addition to working with students, faculty, and independent inventors. These include the New Product Development/Inventor’s Assistance Center, also the Technology Development Center (tech transfer office). I provide a bimonthly seminar on trademarks for the Food and Agricultural Products Center. I team teach senior design classes in engineering with our engineering librarian.