I received this message this morning and thought that some on the list might be interested in taking advantage of the service in order to get crypto patent info. Jeff trestrab@gvsu.edu ====================================================================== [ This is a repost -- the first attempt apparently did not make it out of my site correctly. Sorry if you see this more than once. Anyway, I thought that the people reading the groups this is being posted to would be interested in this info. If you have questions, please send them to spo_info@edsr.eds.com, not to me. Feel free to repost this anyplace appropriate. --chx ] Free US Patent Searches! Electronic Data Systems' Shadow Patent Office (SPO) is offering the Internet community free electronic mail-based patent search services until 5:00 pm CST, January 28th. Keyword and manual searches are now obsolete. With the EDS SPO technology, patent research is now based on the concepts and ideas expressed. The purpose of providing free searches is to determine the interest in such a service within the Internet community, identify any performance bottlenecks not identified in our simulation testing, and to obtain feedback from the Internet community. The SPO database contains US full-text patents from 1972 to the present. SPO utilizes the EDS-designed, high performance MAYA Concept Search Engine. SPO is dedicating 16 of the 32 MAYA CPUs and 20 Gigabytes of RAM for the test. The 1.7 million patents contain 80 gigabytes of textual data. MAYA is used to determine the 100 closest patents from the 1.7 million patents in the SPO database. To obtain a search, simply address an Internet mail message to spo_net_test@edsr.eds.com. SPO is offering Internet users access to two types of searches: subject search and infringement search. ---------------------------------------------------------------- SUBJECT SEARCH For a subject search, include in the mail text from 1/4 to 2 pages of text that describes the invention and then send the message. A mail reply will be returned to the sender with the search results The search results include the title, patent id, class and subclass, issue date, and rank of the 100 closest patents. ---------------------------------------------------------------- INFRINGEMENT SEARCH For an infringement search, include the words "patent id:", followed by a space, and a patent number. The patent number must be exactly 8 digits with a leading zero and no commas. patent id: 04626836 Text from the chosen patent will be compared with the 1.7 million patents in the database. The search results include the title, patent id, class and subclass, issue date, and rank of the 100 closest patents. ---------------------------------------------------------------- WEIGHTING To get narrower, more specific search results, you can emphasize unique features by weighting important words when doing a subject or infringement search. The following examples will help you weight keywords related to a subject or infringement search. Weighting Examples: I. Subject Search Example --- keywords --- calendaring scheduling electronic --- keywords --- A method of scheduling meetings . . . II. Infringement Search Example patent id: 04626836 --- keywords --- calendaring scheduling electronic --- keywords --- ---------------------------------------------------------------- MORE INFORMATION For more information on constructing searches and to see sample search reports, you may access SPO's help document by addressing an Internet mail message to spo_net_test@edsr.eds.com In the mail text simply type the word help. A help and sample file will be returned to you. If you would like to send us your comments and/or suggestions, please send a mail message to spo_info@edsr.eds.com. The information obtained from this free trial will play a significant role in finalizing the product to be offered to the Internet community. A second free trial is to be scheduled after incorporating your suggestions. During this testing period, the response time will depend on the amount of activity on the system. Based on the volume of usage during this testing period, EDS SPO will adjust the number of computers available to produce replies in a timely manner. -- cheeks@hydra.unm.edu