New version of Patent Grabber to cure PCT searching ills!

Well, those mischievous folks at WIPO have done it again! They made changes to their search system that broke Patent Grabber's ability to do PCT searching. I have uploaded Patent Grabber 6.4.2 which cures the problem. Download now from the Patent Tools page of the Blazing Dawn Software web site:

Patent Tools

Patent Grabber 6.4.1 (Final) is now available for download!

Patent Grabber(TM) Version 6.4.1 is a FREE upgrade for registered users of Version 5.x and 6.x. When you start Ver. 6.4.1, it should automatically open up in its registered state. If that does not happen, enter your username and registration code.

The Mac OS X version is now code signed for your protection. Check your settings under "Secuity & Privacy" --> "General" to make sure it is set to allow apps downloaded from "Mac App Store and identified developers." We will release a code signed Windows version of Patent Grabber as soon as we can.

Downloading:

Fixed a lot of “link rot” issues.

Added ability to mix U.S. issued patents and published applications in the “Download” list.

Added the ability to save everything that is downloaded into a single Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file. Especially useful if you are just downloading the bibliographic pages from multiple patents and you want them combined into a single PDF document.
See the "Preferences" section of the Patent Grabber instructions for a description of how you can obtain a free EPO "Open Patent Services" (OPS) account and then generate credentials for you to use with your copy of Patent Grabber. Those credentials will reduce the chance of the EPO temporarily locking you out of their OPS databases for overusage. Several of Patent Grabber's features make use of OPS.

Searching:

Fixed a lot of “link rot” issues.

Download for Mac OS X

Download for Windows

Patent Grabber 6.4.1 beta (Build 11) is available for download!

OK, finally! There has been enough input and enough testing to put Patent Grabber 6.4.1 beta (Build 11) up for downloading. This will hopefully be the production version so long as I do not receive any problem reports.

The big problem was "link rot" issues, especially for features that used the EPO's "Open Patent Services" system. For a while it was a moving target (that's why I never released Version 6.4), but things have hopefully settled down for the time being.

I have added two new features that were requested by users:

First, users may now mix U.S. patent numbers and U.S. published application numbers in the download field. While it may seem like a simple concept, in operation it was a lot more complicated!

Second, I added the ability to combine many documents from one download list into a single Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file. Say you just want to download the bibliographic pages from many patents, and have them as a single PDF file. Previously, you would have had to download the individual bibliographic files using Patent Grabber and then perform that final combining process separately using a PDF manipulation app such as the full version of Acrobat or (on the Mac) Preview. In Version 6.4.1 all you have to do is check the "Single PDF" checkbox and Patent Grabber will do everything for you.

Please download Patent Grabber 6.4.1 beta (Build 11):

Mac OSX

Windows

Patent Grabber 6.3 is now available!

Patent Grabber 6.3 is now available! This version is a free upgrade for licensed users.

Added the ability for a user to save European Patent Office credentials for their copy of Patent Grabber. That allows Patent Grabber to operate at maximum speed without liklihood of being locked out by the EPO for over usage. Obtaining EPO credentials is free, and is highly recommended for all users who: 1) use US Patent Biblio with "Include Family Identifiers" checked, 2) use US Patent Biblio +, download EP, PCT or International patent documents, or download INPADOC legal status reports.

See the "Preferences" section of the Patent Grabber instructions for a description of how you can obtain a free EPO "Open Patent Services" account and then generate credentials for you to use with your copy of Patent Grabber.

The Family-izer™ patent family web apps are back in action!

Family-izer and Family-izer Solo both stopped working recently. We tracked down the problem to an unannounced change at our ISP. We made the appropriate adjustments and both are back in action!

So if you need INPADOC patent family information, for one patent or hundreds, please give them a try!

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.