Form G248 PatentsView Query Tool Questionnaire

OMB No. 0651-0080

Expires 08/31/2018

Attached are mockups for a new patents data query tool, part of the USPTO PatentsView initiative. PatentsView is a prototype patent data visualization and analysis platform intended to increase the value, utility and transparency of U.S. patent data. The initiative is a collaboration between the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Center for the Science of Science and Innovation Policy at the American Institutes for Research, New York University, the University of California at Berkeley, and Periscopic, Inc. The PatentsView platform is built on a newly developed database that longitudinally links inventors, their organization, locations and overall patenting activity.

Given your expertise in the intellectual property and innovation space, we seek your guidance on the usability of the two approaches presented for querying and downloading data from the PatentsView database.  We further request feedback on the individual features of each approach – which features are valuable and which are less so, and which features are confusing to users.

Questions:

1. The first “Expanded Approach” displays all search options on one long web page, while the second “Condensed Approach” presents search options collapsed into high-level search categories. Which of the two approaches is more intuitive/user friendly? 

2. The initial text search option (top of Condensed Approach) enables quick text searching on patent title, inventor name and/or assignee name. Do you find this feature useful?

3. Which of the features in the Expanded Approach do you find particularly useful for querying patent data?

4. Which of the features in the Condensed Approach do you find particularly useful for querying patent data?

5. Which of the features in the Expanded Approach do you find confusing?  

6. Which of the features in the Condensed Approach do you find confusing?  

7. Which, if any, features are not particularly useful for your research?

8. Each approach presents a different display for selecting output fields and retrieving resulting data. Which approach do you prefer?

9. Please provide any additional comments or feedback.

Under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, notwithstanding any other provisions of the law, no person is required to respond to, nor shall any person be subject to penalty for failure to comply with, a collection of information subject to the requirements of the PRA, unless that collection of information displays a currently valid OMB control number. The information collected from this questionnaire will be used for developing a patent data query tool for the USPTO PatentsView website. This survey is strictly voluntary. The USPTO estimates that it will take approximately 30 minutes to complete this survey.