Patent Grabber 6.2.1 now available

Patent Grabber 6.2.1 is now available to download from the Blazing Dawn Software "Patent Tools" page. This minor update fixed the downloading of EPO and PCT text, and cleaned up some abberations in the US Patent Biblio and US Patent Biblio+ spreadsheets.

Windows users of Patent Grabber: new instructions for installing the PDFTK helper app

Windows users: if you are new to Patent Grabber, then you need to download the PDFTK helper app in order to enable Patent Grabber to combine the individual PDF pages of a patent into a single PDF file. Previously, it was easy for users to download the pdftk.zip file, unzip it, and put the resulting pdftk.exe file into the same folder with Patent Grabber. Once you had it there, you just moved it to another folder whenever you downloaded a newer version of Patent Grabber, or you simply put a new version of Patent Grabber into the same folder with the pdftk.exe file.

Now PDF Labs, the developer of PDFTK, has a fancy new installer instead of a simple zip archive. So if you do not already have a copy of pdftk.exe, you need to go to http://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-server/ and download the Windows "PDFTK Server" installer. Once downloaded, double-click to start the installer.

You can choose where to install the PDFTK Server folder, so install it somewhere that is easy to find since you will not need most of the files and folders that are included. I installed it into my Documents folder. What you will see upon installation is a folder called PDFTK Server (which of course makes sense!). Inside the PDFTK Server folder are several folders, one of which is called "bin." Open the bin folder and you will find two files, pdftk.exe and libiconv2.dll. Those are the only two files you will need. Just drag those two files into the folder that contains Patent Grabber and you are done. You can now delete the PDFTK Server folder.

Once you have these two files on your PC you do not have to download PDFTK Server again when I release a new version of Patent Grabber. Just move the Patent Grabber files into the same folder with pdftk.exe, or move the pdftk.exe and libiconv2.dll files into the same folder with the new version of Patent Grabber.

Patent Grabber 6.2 is now available!

Patent Grabber 6.2 is now available for download from the Patent Tools page of the Blazing Dawn Software web site. Fixes the ability to download U.S. patents and published patent applications. Full length U.S. patents and applications now download much faster. Adds "International" search through the EPO's library. "Demo mode" now uses a separate patent number entry field .

Patent Grabber update is nearly complete!

The update to Patent Grabber that will reinstate USPTO downloading is nearly complete. Just some fine tuning is left to do. Thank you for your patience!

Patent Grabber: Change at USPTO also effects published applications

Sorry, but contrary to yesterday's post, US patent applications are also adversely effected by the USPTO's switch to PDF downloads. Patent Grabber only appears to be downloading the application pages. However, the pages are blank!

I will be releasing a fix for both US patents and published applications as soon as I can. In the meantime, you may still download US patents and published applications using Patent Grabber's "International" option. Using that option downloads the pages from the EPO's library. Just be sure to precede each patent and publication number with the "US" country code.

USPTO goes to PDF downloads. Patent Grabber needs modification.

USPTO has gone to PDF downloads after years of saying that it was too onerous and expensive to do so. As a result, Patent Grabber will hang if you try to download US patents. You can use the "International" downloading option for US patents as a stopgap measure (remember to add the "US" country code).

Even though US published patent applications are also now available in PDF format from the USPTO, Patent Grabber does is not having a problem with them. Go figure!

The EP searching problem affects Patent Grabber

The EP searching problem that I posted about earlier affects Patent Grabber's ability to do EP searching. So for time being, any EP searches performed using Patent Grabber or Espacenet's "EP-only" collection will not return any hits that were published after August 22, 1012.