PatentMonkey.com - Infinite Monkey Theorem Blog

Introducing PatentMonkey.com	Location: Blogs IMT Blog
By PatentMonkey on 2/1/2007 10:36 AM

Infinite Monkey Theorem (IMT) is the blog for PatentMonkey.com. We’ll refer to this message for a while to give new users a sense of why we developed this site. Additionally, this blog will be our platform to highlight IP news from other sources, provide our own commentary and discuss the patent technology world from an insider’s perspective with a business-impact spin, and less on the technical aspects of the patent system... Our catalyst for building a great patent search site comes from our team's work with the USPTO, our direct experience on a number of projects and in hearing from many users the frustrations with current search options. While the PTO is a great primary resource, they have not focused as much on user interface needs. Pretty much everyone agrees on this and few other companies have comprehensively picked up the slack. As Paul Graham says, "I don't know why it's so hard to make something people want. It seems like it should be straightforward. But you can tell it must be hard by how few startups do it." While reviewing the landscape of patent searching and download sites (we estimate that there are over 30 of them), we found a big gap of sites that offer BOTH a great user interface for searching all the available PTO fields and the ability to access PDF documents starting with free, open access. After months of work, we more fully appreciate the reasons why there are so few that do it all. Moreover, we also found that there are a large number of people that do patent searches that don't subscribe to a top-tier service because of cost and their low frequency of use. Our goal for PatentMonkey.com is to provide a top-quality service that allows users great tools and a professional interface typically only available through expensive subscription services or by physically going to the PTO's offices. We developed PatentMonkey.com's individual patent page and navigation with a lot of respect for patent searching history. One of our co-founders, Paul Ratcliffe, worked at the USPTO as a patent examiner and is a registered patent attorney. While at the PTO, he learned about the ways patent examiners use to search, before the internet. In the days before all patents were digitized, examiners used drawers or “shoes” to store paper copies of the patents which allowed examiners to quickly review patent front pages to identify the patents of interest. Examiners would then take the patents of interest for a more in-depth review. PatentMonkey.com was designed to enable users to replicate that efficient process in an open and modern version. That front page of a patent (which includes bibliographic information) along with an example image tells quite a story. For some reason, few searching sites leverage a patent front page's efficiency and simplicity. We have. We researched the typical patent search and determined that most searches cover 300 to 700 patents and learned that the best way to perform the review is in 2 to 3 stages. The first step (which is optional) is that searchers need to get to a set of keywords that are tuned to the invention by scanning a series of patents for content. Second, a full search using the right keywords is done at a high level. Depending on the scope of the search, this may involve a series of searches over a couple hours and yields a number of patents that are 'close to the pin'. The final step is to spend more significant time with each patent, in many cases on paper in preparation for a full write up. If you've got 30-50 patents you want to spend time with as a result of your search, how do you get them today? We see a number of sites that offer services after you have your list, but we thought that being able to add your patents to a list, and download them in one step would be so much better than writing down the list and then going somewhere else to download them. Moreover, we have created the ability to save your list, or what we call a folder (membership is required), which will allow you to access it later. OK, so we're offering an efficient user interface for searching, the ability to add to and save a list and to download patent documents, and you may ask what the catch is. None, really, we have committed that, like the data underlying it, you should have free access to it. We are beginning to work with advertisers so that we can offer the basic functionality of our site for free. If you're interested in advertising with us please contact us at contact(at)patentmonkey(dot)com. For more frequent users, we offer a couple ways to upgrade from free downloads to save a bit more time. F irst, we offer patent by patent PDF download credits that allow you to get a number of patents using our site's more advanced features, like bulk downloads, while not being committed on an ongoing basis. If you feel like you'll be using the site regularly, we also offer monthly and annual subscriptions that allow you virtually unlimited access for downloads. We're a new site, with a lot of ideas to improve upon patent searching which we'll be rolling out in the coming months. We invite you to send us your thoughts at contact(at)patentmonkey(dot)com as your feedback is what we use to prioritize improvements. Good luck and good searching.

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