Law Commons^™

A Guide To U.S. Intellectual Property Searching Online, Jennifer L. Selby

Law Librarian Scholarship

The disadvantage to searching intellectual property online, patents in particular, is that the available online databases do not encompass the array and extent of tools needed to conduct a comprehensive search.7 Essentially, you can search patents on the web, but you cannot do a true patent search. A complete patentability search must include not only U.S. patents, but foreign patents and all relevant non-patent literature also (all resources together are referred to as ‘‘prior art’’ for an invention).8 These additional resources can be researched at the Patent Office Library in Washington D.C., and, on a more limited basis, at a …

Sarony V. Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co., Henry W. Rogers

Articles

Commenting in the Federal Reporter on this Opinion, Professor Rogers considers at length this case bearing on definitions of copyright and artistic properties. "This was an action at law for the violation of the plaintiff's copyright of a photograph of Oscar Wilde, which the defendant had copied by the process known as chromo-lithography.... A jury was waived, and the case was argued upon questions of law only, which appear in the opinion."

"The contention of the defendant, briefly stated, is this: That there was no constitutional warrant for this act; that a photographer is not an author, and a photograph …