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Photograph by Skye Dunalp

The patent for the clothespin is one of the 5.7 million on file at SC[i]3, the Sunnyvale branch of the U.S. Patent Office. The office holds every patent issued in this country since 1790.

House Of Ideas

Sunnyvale houses the best used U.S. Patent Office in the nation

By Pam Marino

It probably wouldn't surprise many people to know that more patents are issued to Silicon Valley businesses and individual inventors by the United States Patent Office than to inventors in any other area of the nation.

What might be surprising, however, is that right here in Sunnyvale there's a place to see all 5.7 million patents that have been issued in this country since 1790.

A partnership between the City of Sunnyvale and the Patent Office brings to the city a unique kind of public library called the Sunnyvale Center for Innovation, Invention and Ideas, or SC[i]3, located at 465 S. Mathilda Ave., Suite 300.

Along with the integrated circuit invented by R. Noyce, Patent Number 2,981,877, one of the more famous Silicon Valley patents issued, there are some other fascinating, and in some cases downright silly-sounding, patents from around the country available for public scrutiny at SC[i]3.

Like the Lawrence Welk Accordion Lunchbox, the dog umbrella, and even musical condoms.

Some of the more interesting patents include the design patent for the Statue of Liberty, number D11,023, and the design patent for the "Manner of Buoyant Vessels," number D6,469, by Abraham Lincoln, the only president to have ever been awarded a patent.

The library is home to every volume of The Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office, a weekly journal that lists the most recent patents. The Gazette goes back to 1878, when subscriptions cost $6 a year.

But the Patent Office itself date back to 1790, and SC[i]3 has every patent ever awarded since that time on microfilm. More recent patents are on CD-ROM. International patents are also available.

The library has access to computer files of the Patent Office, called the Automated Patent System, and for a fee people can use SC[i]3 computers to research those files.

Another computer system helps people with Federal Trademark searches.

Sunnyvale became one of a network of official depositories of patent and trademark information across the United States in 1963. The depository joined the Sunnyvale Public Library in 1965. The city has paid the cost of upkeep for the library all that time, despite the fact that people and companies from all over Silicon Valley use it.

In 1994, the city and the U.S. Patent Office formed SC[i]3 in order to make the depository--the most used in the U.S.--self-sufficient by improving its services, according to director Mary Clare Sprott.

The Patent Office installed new technology in the library, such as the Automated Patent System and video conferencing equipment, and committed to ongoing training for staff as technology changes. The city pays for the staff, the building and materials. Since the changes, Sprott said fees cover about 85 percent of costs.

The library has become a model for the rest of the country, and two other partnership sites have since been started in Houston and Detroit.

SC[i]3 charges for use of the video conferencing equipment, which allows inventors to meet with Patent Office officials face to face without the cost and time of a trip to Washington, D.C. The library also uses the equipment to set up live video seminars, so that inventors and companies here can learn from experts in Washington.

The service is a big help to West Coast inventors who feel "geographically challenged" by the Patent Office's East Coast location, Janet Berkeley, staff associate, said.

The library sponsors seminars and workshops with experts in Sunnyvale who educate inventors about a variety of issues including patent law, trademark rights and even business management.

Approximately 2,000 businesses use the library each year, and Sprott said the library logs about 40,000 walk-in visits a year, which does not include the number of people who call with inquiries or use its search services. That's down from a high of 68,000 visits, a direct result of the explosion of information available on the Internet.

The fact that so much information is available on the Internet could have a serious long-term effect on the library, but Sprott said staff are trying to cope by coming up with new ideas for services.

"I think we're going to be more of a training center," Sprott said. Just because the information is available on the Internet does not mean people will be able to use it effectively, she said. For instance, an incomplete patent search could lead to wasted time and expense for inventors, who could find their patent applications rejected. The Patent Office rejects any application that comes close to any one of the earlier 5 million patents awarded. An application can cost more than $300 for individuals and twice that for companies.

Longtime library user Bill Holtkamp said even he is coming in to the library less and using the Internet more.

"Still, it's very nice to have some warm bodies around [you] can go and ask questions to," said Holtkamp last week at SC[i]3 while doing some research. Unless people know exactly what they need, using the Internet "might get confusing," he said.

Holtkamp used the library for two patents he was awarded in the 1980s, and he's back to work on four more. His first two patents involved two new uses of "Bucky Balls," a third form of carbon shaped like a soccer ball: a sphere of a pentagon surrounded by hexagons. The substance is named after Buckminster Fuller, who made geodesic domes famous. In one application the microscopic particles are used in batteries, research and medicine. Another application has spawned a new generation of vacuum pumps, according to Holtkamp.

Sprott said the library staff rarely gets to hear how their patrons' patents work out, but every once in a while someone will drop by to say thank you or show off their new products.

She has a drawer full of the gadgets and inventions donated by their makers--"odd little things," she calls them. There's a pair of pantyhose with a dragon painted down one leg to give the appearance of a tattoo. Another is a baseball cap with a detachable brim to change advertising logos and even team names.

And some inventors and patrons get recognized in the media, like Geoff Ball, a Sunnyvale native who got the patent for a transmitter that's implanted in the inner ear of deaf people so they can hear. Ball himself is deaf.

One man spent years and years visiting the library to research corkscrews, Sprott said. He went through volumes upon volumes of the Gazette looking for every kind of corkscrew invented. The result of his research was a coffee- table book on the gadgets.

"We serve a lot of different people in different ways," Sprott said. "Our clientele is very, very diverse."

The Sunnyvale Center for Innovation, Invention and Ideas is free and open to the public; some services require a fee. Hours are 9-5, Monday through Friday at the library's location, 465 S. Mathilda Ave., Suite 300. Call 730-7290 for more information.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, September 30, 1998.
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