What is a PTDL Partnership?

A PTDL Partnership is a formal agreement between the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and a selected PTDL to enhance the services available to a region's intellectual property community. These specialized services, offered on a cost recovery basis, supplement the free public access to patent and trademark products and services available at all PTDLs. State-of-the-art technology at the PTDL Partnership libraries supports a variety of services previously available only at the PTO.

Partnership Objectives

Partnership PTDLs are intended to become regional focal points for the dissemination of intellectual property information, drawing on the resources of federal, state, and local agencies. With a phased-in introduction of new services and products, Partnership PTDLs strive to become "conception to marketplace" assistance centers. Their goal is to provide specialized services which are comprehensive, efficient, accurate, timely, and competitively priced.

History and Location of PTDL Partnership Libraries

The partnership concept arose from a perceived need for more locally available patent and trademark information. Potential customers in the Silicon Valley and Great Lakes areas indicated a willingness to pay reasonable fees for enhanced, on site, up-to-date patent and trademark technology, service, training, and expertise. Community, academic, and business leaders supported the concept as a potential means to promote business growth, competitiveness, and technological innovation. With venture capital from PTO and the City of Sunnyvale, California, the first Partnership was launched in 1994 at the Sunnyvale PTDL. The Sunnyvale Center for Innovation, Invention and Ideas (Sc[i]³), known as "Sci Cubed," serves the intellectual community in the western states and the Pacific Rim.

A second Partnership, the Great Lakes Patent and Trademark Center (GLPTC), was organized at the Detroit Public Library in 1995 to serve the Great Lakes region, including nearby Canadian communities. The Toledo/Lucas County (Ohio) Public Library, the "Gateway to Ohio," became a satellite partner of GLPTC also in 1995. On November 9, 1995 and January 30, 1996, GLPTC and
Sc[i]³ respectively, were designated as National Performance Review Reinvention Laboratories.

A third Partnership, Rice University's South Central Intellectual Property Partnership (SCIPPR), operated at the Fondren Library in Houston, Texas, from 1997 to 2001. Texas A&M University's Sterling C. Evans Library in College Station, Texas, took over as the regional Partnership library in August 2003 with its Texas Intellectual Property Partnership (Tip²).

Who are our Partnership Customers?

Customers include individual inventors, patent attorneys and agents, businessmen, researchers, competitive-intelligence analysts, entrepreneurs, students, historians, and the general public. Inventors and entrepreneurs benefit from "one-stop shopping" for government and commercial publications on patenting, marketing, and exporting inventions. Established firms maintain their competitiveness through improved access to value-added information and services.

Partnership Business Goals

PTO has a mandate to recover its costs. The Partnership effort reflects PTO's more business-like approach to meeting its responsibilities for disseminating patent and trademark information. It is part of an overall strategy to provide convenient and equitable access to users of the U.S. intellectual property systems. Cost recovery for both PTO and the PTDL is fundamental to every Partnership business plan.

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