[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Page 7369]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 U.S. COMMERCE DEPARTMENT'S NEW INTERNET PATENT AND TRADEMARKS DATABASE

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would like to commend Commerce Secretary 
William Daley, acting Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks Q. Todd 
Dickinson, and the U.S. Department of Commerce for their hard work and 
dedication in establishing the new Patent and Trademark Office Internet 
database. This online database truly reinvents how the government does 
business and how business innovation can flourish with government's 
help. This database will help erode some of the traditional barriers 
that have hindered business innovation in small, rural states like 
Vermont.
  As an avid Internet user, I have long advocated a transition to an 
online database for trademarks and patents. The prior painstaking 
process of searching existing patents and trademarks was a time-
consuming frustration for inventors. Last Congress I co-authored an 
amendment to the Omnibus Patent Act of 1997, which would have required 
the creation of computer networks to provide electronic access to 
patent information. I am proud that the database unveiled today 
achieves the goal of universal electronic access to trademarks and 
patents.
  This new system of instant on-line access to the entire patent 
application--including the drawings--will greatly promote innovation 
and technology by showing researchers what the current science is. With 
this new database, there are now more than two million complete patents 
on-line dating back to 1976 and 1 million trademarks dating back to 
1870.
  This patent and trademark database could not have come at a better 
time. In the last 2 years, patent applications have increased by 25 
percent and trademark applications have increased by 16 percent. In 
1998, the Patent and Trademark Office received over a quarter of a 
million applications for patents alone, and they issued more than 
150,000 patents.
  Advancements in medicine, information technology, pharmaceuticals, 
transportation, environmental protection, manufacturing, agriculture, 
entertainment and countless other areas of science depend on patents. 
New investions build on exisitng science, and existing science will now 
be available to anyone with Internet access--whether they live in the 
Northeast Kingdom of Vermont or Nome, Alaska or Silicon Valley, 
California.
  This free Internet access changes the dynamic for American 
independent inventors and for corporate giants. Citizens who simply 
want to learn more by browsing the Web, students doing school projects, 
independent inventors and corporate research departments now can search 
this vast database. I have supported this development for several years 
and am delighted that it is fully up and running.

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