<div dir="ltr"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Hi All</font><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><h3 style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:400;line-height:1.1;color:rgb(0,0,0);margin:0px 0px 30px;text-align:justify"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">In an attempt to make patents even marginally useful we have just created an open source <a href="http://freeip.mtu.edu/home/index.php">free inactive patent search</a>. Roughly 1/2 of US patents become inactive before the 20 year mark because owners don't pay fees on time.</font></h3><h3 style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:400;line-height:1.1;color:rgb(0,0,0);margin:0px 0px 30px;text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:1.1">To find patents that have merely expired you can simply set your search terms to look for patents that are 20 years old or older at the USPTO or Google Patents. However, finding a list of inactive patents is far more challenging. Our website overcomes that challenge as it allows you to search through all inactive patents in the U.S. that are less than 20 years old. We created this database to help drive open source hardware development. Our previous work has found that </span><a href="https://www.academia.edu/11677580/The_Case_for_Weaker_Patents" target="_blank" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:1.1;box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0,0,255);text-decoration:none;background-color:transparent">patents should be significantly weakened</a><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:1.1"> as they are actively retarding innovation and technical progress. By properly </span><a href="https://www.academia.edu/10143203/Quantifying_the_Value_of_Open_Source_Hard-ware_Development" target="_blank" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:1.1;box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0,0,255);text-decoration:none;background-color:transparent">valuing open hardware development</a><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:1.1"> it is clear that the </span><a href="https://www.academia.edu/13799962/Return_on_Investment_for_Open_Source_Hardware_Development" target="_blank" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:1.1;box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0,0,255);text-decoration:none;background-color:transparent">return on investment for OSH development is enormous</a><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:1.1">. In addition, </span><a href="http://www.appropedia.org/A_novel_approach_to_obviousness:_An_algorithm_for_identifying_prior_art_concerning_3-D_printing_materials" target="_blank" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:1.1;box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0,0,255);text-decoration:none;background-color:transparent">proactive measures to defend the public domain</a><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:1.1"> can also provide more safe space for innovators to operate. Our hope is that this database accelerates your open hardware development. So hopefully this will help you keep it up!</span></h3><div><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;line-height:1.1">The database: </span><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="line-height:14.3000001907349px"><a href="http://freeip.mtu.edu/">http://freeip.mtu.edu/</a> </span></font><br></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="line-height:14.3000001907349px">The source code: <a href="https://github.com/mtu-most/patent-database">https://github.com/mtu-most/patent-database</a></span></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="line-height:14.3000001907349px"><br></span></font></div><h3 style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:400;line-height:1.1;color:rgb(0,0,0);margin:0px 0px 30px;text-align:justify"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">For more information please see the article published in <i>Inventions </i>(2016): <a href="https://www.academia.edu/29781601/Open_Source_Database_and_Website_to_Provide_Free_and_Open_Access_to_Inactive_U.S._Patents_in_the_Public_Domain" target="_blank" style="box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0,0,255);text-decoration:none;background-color:transparent">Open Source Database and Website to Provide Free and Open Access to Inactive U.S. Patents in the Public Domain</a>. doi: 10.3390/inventions1040024</font></h3></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">All the best,</font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Joshua<br clear="all"></font><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">-- <br></font><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Joshua M. Pearce, Ph.D.<br>Associate Professor<br><a href="http://www.appropedia.org/Category:MOST" target="_blank">Michigan Tech Open Sustainability Technology Lab</a><span style="padding-right:16px;width:16px;height:16px"></span><br>Department of Materials Science & Engineering<br>Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering<br>Michigan Technological University<br>601 M&M Building<br>1400 Townsend Drive<br>Houghton, MI 49931-1295<br>906-487-1466<br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br><a href="http://www.appropedia.org/Open-source_Lab" target="_blank">Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs</a></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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