2011 - Patent and Trademark Resource Center Association

Akron, OH

Akron-Summit County Public Library
Submitted by: Monique Mason

The Science & Technology department at the Akron-Summit County Public Library, home of the Akron PTDL, enjoyed a busy 2010. We serve a very diverse population, from university students to tinkering inventors and entrepreneurs to attorneys and engineers, as walk-in, phone or email patrons.

In celebration of our fifteenth year as a PTDL, we hosted our third InventaPalooza, an all-day event geared toward the independent inventor. Featured speakers were Louis Foreman, publisher of Inventor’s Digest and producer of Everyday Edisons, Continue reading

Atlanta, GA

Georgia Institute of Technology
Submitted by: Lisha Li

In collaboration with the PTDLP Office at USPTO, Georgia Tech PTDL held a free “Patents and Trademarks 101” Workshop (http://libguides.gatech.edu/patentsworkshop) on campus in November 2010. This full-day workshop brought together about 120 enthusiastic participants, including inventors, students, faculty, researchers, librarians, business owners, and IP professionals both on campus and throughout the state. Tom Turner, Librarian from the PTDLP Office, helped with the planning of our workshop. Dr. Michael Hydorn and Ms. Hope Slonim of USPTO traveled to our campus and offered sessions on patents and trademarks and answered questions from the audience. Continue reading

Cheyenne, WY

Wyoming State Library
Submitted by: Karen Kitchens

The Wyoming State Library (WSL) became a PTDL in 2005. I am the sole staff member within the PTDL, and additionally manage the Federal Depository Library program here at WSL. We are the only PTDL in the state and consequently, serve the entire population of Wyoming. Our state population is approximately 544,000. As you can imagine, this compels me to focus more actively on distance service versus in-house.

Researchers/inventors occasionally make appointments with me to work one-on-one, Continue reading

Clemson, SC

Clemson University
Submitted by: Jan Comfort

Greetings from sunny Clemson SC. As I write this, spring is beginning to become evident on campus. It’s my favorite season here, because it means that the PTDL Training Seminar will begin soon.

College Park, MD

University of Maryland, College Park
Submitted by: Jim Miller

Jim Miller and Bob Kackley are still the main “patent folks” at College Park, though we try to get other people involved. Nevenka Zdravkovska and Nedelina Tchangalova are loyal PTDLA members. As in all libraries, there are increasing demands on staff time. We have gotten valuable assistance from our iSchool grad student Francy Stilwell, notably her setting up our new Patents & Trademarks guide at http://lib.guides.umd.edu/patent_tm . Our patent and trademark business continues to be mostly with students, Continue reading

Dayton, OH

Wright State University, Paul Laurence Dunbar Library
Submitted by: Ran Raider

The Paul Laurence Dunbar Library has been a PTDL since 2000. Our PTDL collection is stored in the Information Commons area of the main library.

We set new record for patent and trademark reference interactions with over 700 patent and trademark information requests. I continue to provide 2 basic intellectual property classes, 4 patent and 2 trademark workshops a year. There were new opportunities to work with the local Entrepreneur Center and presentations to Sinclair Community College Entrepreneur classes. Continue reading

Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Broward County Main Library
Submitted by: Eileen Fischlschweiger

Hi Readers!

My name is Eileen Fischlschweiger, and I’ve been the Fort Lauderdale PTDL Representative for fourteen years, having worked at the PTDL in the capacity of Patent and Trademark Librarian for sixteen years. I have been a librarian with the Broward County Library System for over 22 years. My undergraduate degree is a Bachelor of Science in both Chemistry and Physics (double major). I also have a Master’s degree in Communications, a considerable amount of graduate level coursework in Education, Continue reading

Honolulu, HI

Hawaii State Public Library System
Submitted by: Stewart Chun

A big warm sunny aloha to everyone from our corner of the world. Stewart Chun and Arlene Nagamine are holding down the fort while Carole Suzui is on secret mission to our Office of the State Librarian to compile library statistics for the various reports on our library system’s activity. In Carole’s place, we are happy to have the services of Emily Dovermann from our McCully Public Library. She was willing to try a change of pace from being a Children’s Librarian and is picking up her duties very well. Continue reading

Houston, Texas

Submitted by: Esther Crawford

The PTDL at Rice University is located in Fondren Library’s Kelley Center for Government Information and Microforms. Three of our eight staff members (Siu, Linda and Esther) teach patent searching classes to area inventors and offer individual training to inventors and researchers. Six staff members (Ann, Ericka, Esther, Linda, Sarah and Siu) provide assistance at the Kelley Center Service Desk and two staff members (Kim and Jean) run and staff the GIS/Data Center. In addition to our PTDL services, Continue reading

Little Rock, AR

Arkansas State Library
Submitted by: Michael Strickland

March 15 will mark the second year that the Arkansas State Library (PTRC since 1983) has been at our new location at 900 W. Capitol Ave in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Arkansas State Library continues to evolve and change. We are currently in the midst of making changes to the location and layout of our Patents and Trademark area. Presently, our patents area is located on the second floor near the conference rooms. This summer we hope to move the patents to the first floor into a new patents and trademark area located near our federal microfiche. Continue reading

Louisville, KY

Louisville Free Public Library
Submitted by: Rae Shepherd-Shlechter

Let me introduce myself. I’m Rae Shepherd-Shlechter and I have been the PTDL Librarian since 1998 for the Louisville Free Public Library. I’m also the Business Reference Librarian and the Government Documents Librarian at the library.
I take a very small-business oriented approach in helping my intellectual property clients. The vast majority of them are small business, independent inventor types, and I find this approach the most suitable for their needs. I’m pretty hard nosed in getting my clients to look at their invention’s profit potential. Continue reading

Madison, WI

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Kurt F. Wendt Library
Submitted by: Nancy Spitzer

Wendt Library serves the departments of Engineering, Computer Science, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, and Statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The PTDL representative is Nancy Spitzer. Amy Kindschi, Head of Faculty and Student Services, also provides patent searching expertise. Amy will be attending the training seminar in April this year. Other Wendt librarians who help out with teaching patents are Anne Glorioso, Annie Rauh, Lia Vellardita and Diana Wheeler.

Nancy and Amy teach patents searching in numerous undergraduate and graduate classes in Engineering Professional Development, Continue reading

Minneapolis, MN

Minneapolis Central Library, Hennepin County Library System
Submitted by: Walt Johnson

It was pretty much business as usual at the Minneapolis Central Library of the Hennepin County Library system. I presented my patent talk each month, and although the audience is smaller than it used to be, the attendees are very focused and eager to learn about patents and patent searching.

A local patent attorney was back again with his “Traps and Pitfalls of Intellectual Property” class that he does on a quarterly basis. Continue reading

Morgantown, WV

Evansdale Library, West Virginia University
Submitted by: Marian Armour-Gemmen

Evansdale Library at West Virginia University has been a depository since 1991. The Evansdale Library serves Engineering, Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences, Education, Creative Arts and Physical Education. Independent as well as university inventors come to the Evansdale Library for assistance. I continue to work with the WVU Office of Technology Transfer who routinely sends university inventors to meet with me.

This year I gave several presentations about intellectual property in particular looking at fair use and mash-ups. Continue reading

Rochester, NY

Chester F. Carlson Center, Rochester, NY
Submitted by: Kate Meddaugh

The Chester F. Carlson Patent and Trademark Depository Library (a PTDL since 1999) has been pretty busy this year. Aside from our regular walk-in patrons, we have seen an increase in the number of users who have requested information to be sent to them at home, followed by an hour or two of one-on-one IP tutorial. We are always fortunate to have 8 hours a week to be dedicated to Patent and Trademark work, as our depository library is housed within our Science and History Division. Continue reading

Salt Lake City, UT

University of Utah, Marriott Library
Submitted by: Dave Morrison

The Salt Lake City PTDL is one of the collections of the University of Utah’s Marriott Library. The Marriott Library was first designated a PDL in 1984 (Note –Trademarks were not yet deposited at that time, so there was no ‘T’ as in ‘PTDL’). In addition to our PTDL depository, the Marriott Library has been a federal Government Printing Office (GPO) depository since 1893; a U.S. Department of Energy depository; United Nations, European Union, World Trade Organization and UNESCO depository; Continue reading