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Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Janet Berkeley, a staff associate with the Sunnyvale Center for Innovation, Invention and Ideas for the past 11 years, packs up boxes to be moved to their new location at the Sunnyvale Library, located on West Olive Avenue.
Sunnyvale patent library moves
Relocation will make files more accessible
By Jana Seshadri
The patent and trademark library, a unique Sunnyvale resource, is moving to its new home in the Sunnyvale Public Library, located at 665 W. Olive Ave. Also known as Sc(I)3, which stands for Sunnyvale Center for Innovation, Invention and Ideas, the library will resume its reference service to the public by the end of this month.
"The move will do wonderful things for both the patent library and the public library," said Victoria Johnson, director of the public library.
Johnson said one major benefit would be more visibility for the patent library.
"We have about 2,500 people coming into the public library every single day," Johnson said. "And people who want to access patent and trademark information will now have 68 hours every week."
At its previous location, the patent library was open only for 37 hours every week for the public. The patent library was first established in 1963 in a fire station and became part of the Sunnyvale library system in 1965.
Sc(I)3, established in 1994, is a partnership between the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the city of Sunnyvale to extend the accessibility to the trademark office's information resources beyond the Washington, D.C., area for the first time to inventors, researchers and corporations in Silicon Valley, the Western United States and the Pacific Rim, she said.
Sc(I)3 carries more than 5.7 million patents issued in the United States since 1790 and all registered trademarks, according to staff associate Janet Berkeley. Until recently, more patents were issued in Santa Clara County than in any other part of the nation, Berkeley said.
A patent is a grant issued by the U.S. government giving an inventor the right to exclude all others from making, using or selling his or her invention within the United States. There are three different kinds of patents--utility, design and plant.
"A patent can take anywhere from 22 months to three or four years," Berkeley said.
Examiners, who are experts in various fields of technology, are instrumental in the patent process. An application for a patent is first assigned to an examiner, who researches previous patents and technical literature and determines whether a patent should be granted to the applicant. One can also seek the assistance of a patent attorney in the process.
Anyone living anywhere in the world can apply for a U.S. patent, Berkeley said. But, the issuance of the patent in the United States does not automatically absolve the person from his or her own country's patent laws, she said. He or she would probably have to apply for the same patent in that country as well in order for it to be valid and legal there, she said.
Since 1995, utility and plant patents are effective for 20 years from the date of application, Berkeley said, and design patents for 14 years.
"An idea for a patent has to be new, useful and unobvious," Berkeley said.
Two quick ways to put one's idea in writing as soon as one comes up with it, are utilizing the document disclosure program or writing the idea down in a notebook and dating it, Berkeley said.
The constant evolution of technology and science stipulates the time limit on patents and does not allow for a product or idea to be patented more than once, Berkeley said.
"Researching patents can be a complicated process," Berkeley said.
Recounting her own research for patent information on a sweatband that one wears around one's forehead, Berkeley said she could not find any information under that name. It turns out that a sweatband is known in the patent world as a "moisture management system."
According to Johnson, before the patent library opens to the public by the end of the month, the public library staff will undergo extensive training on assisting the public with the basic patent information and trademark search process. Internet workstations and a networked printer will provide access to the United States Patent and Trademark Office to provide access to the USPTO website for do-it-yourself searches, she said.
"It will expand the knowledge base of our staff," Johnson said.
The trained staff will be able to assist customers with more sophisticated patent searches for a fee, Johnson said.
"An increase in fee-based services will increase our revenue," she added.
She said the patent library's move became necessary after their lease doubled last year and staffing costs increased.
"The patent office's goal is to make the patents more accessible to the public," said Mary Walsh, supervising librarian for special projects. "Our business needs to continue to evolve."
The public can access the patent library online through the library's website at www.sci3.com.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
