Dr. Richard
G. Cooper
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Providing Expert Witness Services in
Software, Internet and Electronics Technologies
Downloading Patents
The Download
Patents process runs in the
background as you use Elk™ to review patents. The Download Patents process can
be initiated directly from the Start|All Programs|Elk
for Patents|Download Patents sequence
of program selections. It can
also be started by right-clicking the Search results grid in Elk, and
choosing Download Search
List from the popup menu.
The Download Patents process loads the presently selected list and appears as shown in the figure below:
The list box on the left identifies the patents to be downloaded in the background as you work:
When the program starts,
the list box is loaded automatically from a file which Elk™
creates when you tell it to start the Download
Patents process. You can also specify a file name
to save the list for future reuse or analysis. Elk™ makes
two copies of the list – one file which you have named, and a message box
file which is always stored in the Elk™ start
directory in a file named download
list.txt when Elk™
starts Download
Patents. You don’t have to be concerned
with this file unless you are using a different program (such as notepad)
to generate the download
list.txt file.
The directory box on the right indicates the directory into which all patents in the list box will be stored on your hard drive:
You can left click on the
various folders to open or close them, and select folders from their
directory of folders, until you have specified a directory for all the
patents to be stored in.
The USPTO places a restriction on the number of web accesses you can perform each day from a single internet protocol (IP) address. The web site specifies a maximum of 1,000 accesses per IP address (or group of IP addresses) per day. So Download Patents provides a way for you to control the speed at which patents are downloaded from any specific computer, i.e., from a single IP address. The figure below describes these settings:
As each patent is
downloaded, the program checks your directory to see if that patent has
already been downloaded. So
you need not worry about getting duplicates of patents into the directory
you have specified. Only one
copy of each patent will be downloaded and stored there.
The default limit of
1000 for the Max Patents per
Session to Download applies only to patents from the list box that
must actually be downloaded to fill the directory.
In addition, the USPTO
monitors heavy download activity so that no one accessing program can use
an exorbitant amount of bandwidth per unit time. To avoid having the USPTO turn off
your computer’s access to the site, Download Patents provides a sleep time
in between patent downloads to ensure that your computer doesn’t violate
the USPTO restrictions on excessive bandwidth consumption. The default value of 1000 in Sleep Milliseconds per
Download can be used to ensure proper
consumption.
Either of these settings
can be changed by entering the new value and pressing the Change button next to either (or both) fields.
As each patent is
downloaded, Download
Patents removes that patent
identifier from the list box, and saves the changes in the download
list.txt file. In this way, you can restart
Download
Patents in the future and continue
from the last unloaded patent identifier. This approach helps you minimize
the real time delay of downloading a large number of patents and sharing
the patents among your team members.
When all settings are satisfactory, simply press the Get Patents button to start downloading. The button to press is shown in a red ellipse in the figure below:
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