The Internet offers good sites to learn more about patents. Here are the best. The U.S. Patent Office offers the expected press releases, speeches and updates about patent law changes. There are also some useful files explaining patents and trademarks.
Check out the link to the searchable database of AIDS-related Patents (developed in cooperation with the Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval). It is a model of web searching, providing the ability to search by fields and retrieve not only the text of the patents but also the images submitted along with the patent application. http://www.uspto.gov/
Yes, there is a place for patent frequently asked questions (FAQ). The first rule of Internet searching is find the relevant FAQ. This one for patents offers history, background and definitions of patenting terms. http://www.sccsi.com/DaVinci/patentfaq.html
For patent law information, the Villanova University Law School offers a list of sources. There is even a section on patent law for non-lawyer detailing, in laymen's terms, the rights and responsibilities of patent filing. It's a great site for background information on terms and legalities. http://www.law.vill.edu/~rgruner/patent2.htm
Patents and patent searching is offered as a companion to the previous site. This page links to all the options for patent searching and retrieval on the Internet. http://www.law.vill.edu/~rgruner/patent3.htm
Patent issues
For documents dealing with patenting issues, the University of North Carolina offers yet another of its many great sites. This one links to articles about patent topics - check out the article titled, "A really trivial educational patent." http://sunsite.unc.edu/patents/document.html
The Shadow Patent Office offers free searching of recently issued patents. Register for full patent search and retrieval. http://www.spo.eds.com/patent.html
Nora Paul can be reached at (813) 821-9494, or send e-mail to npaul@poynter.org.