Patent Office Plans a Public Search Portal

We’re guessing that Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Thomson Reuters will be four companies interested in this opportunity.
From NextGov:

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is on the lookout for a company that can use its cumbersome database of granted and pending patents to build a more user-friendly public website that will automatically update users about the changing status of particular patent applications.
That basic function must be provided at no cost to either USPTO or to public users, according to the agency solicitation posted Tuesday.
The chosen vendor may use the information it gathers from crawling the USPTO database, however, to build specialty value-added products that it can charge for.
This solicitation is notable for two reasons.

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Read the Complete Solicitation via FedBizOpps.com.

Filed under: News, Patrons and Users