At Juristat, we use big data analytics to help patent lawyers predict the future. As of the Summer of 2014, our dataset includes over 5.5 million U.S. patent applications, with some applications dating back to the early 1900s. Each patent application is made up of a series of interrelated documents stored in tsv or xml formats. Further, patent applications can be connected to other applications through parent-child relationships. Unlike most big data projects with large constantly streaming data feeds, the patent system moves at a glacial pace, with an average application receiving an new event once every few months. We’ve begun the transition from our existing MySQL database system to a NoSQL document store, and based on our needs  we considered MongoDB and RethinkDB as potential solutions. Below are the findings of our benchmarking and testing

Friday May 23, 2014

 
Simple Legal

Lists identifying top patent blogs are woefully out of date, as many of the blogs listed have been completely abandoned by their authors.

Click Here for the Original Full Length Press Release

By default, patent applications filed in the United States publish eighteen months after their earliest effective filing date. However, under 35 U.S.C 122(b)(2)(B)(i)[1], an applicant may file a non-publication request which, if certain requirements are met, allows for the application to remain unpublished beyond eighteen months, to be published only if and when a patent is granted. If the application is abandoned, then the contents of the application will remain unpublished indefinitely. I know from time to time we have all wondered which firms and in-house counsels are filing all of these secret patent applications. Well, Juristat knows. Below is a graph of the Top 15 filers of non-published patent applications publications that were ultimately granted.