PIUG - Patent Information Users Group, Inc. upcoming events

Teach Patents to Speak Your Company’s Tech Language: Best Practices for Using Custom Fields (29 Jan 2025)

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 16:00:00 GMT

PIUG announces a FREE webinar scheduled for January 29, 2025 11 AM ET for all paid PIUG members.

Presenter: Andrew Klein, Principal Solution Consultant at Minesoft

The patent literature is an invaluable resource for understanding technology landscapes and gaining insight into competitors. However, it has also traditionally proven difficult to organize, analyze, and present that “speaks” to people who aren’t patent information professionals. One strategy for overcoming this difficulty is utilizing custom fields, a feature in many patent research platforms, to overlay a company-specific taxonomy on the standard patent data available. In this session, Andrew Klein, Principal Solution Consultant at Minesoft, will present best practices for using custom fields to make several common patent intelligence workflows easier:

· Identifying prior art for patentability

· Filtering large datasets

· Monitoring/alerting on technologies of interest

· Creating visualizations for analyzing patent data by technology

Given the cost of the webinar and the potential savings to your patent searching practice, how can you not attend this remarkable event?

The session will be recorded and available on demand at PIUG Education and Training

Please share this announcement with your colleagues and post to your professional association calendars.

Essential Patent Search Techniques (19 Feb 2025)

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 15:00:00 GMT

Instructor: John Zabilski

Learn essential information and techniques to effectively search for patent information.

Understanding database coverage, content and structure
Balancing precision versus recall
Comparing search types including bibliographic, keyword, classification, citation, full-text and indexed content
Building comprehensive search statements using search operators and command language techniques including nesting, truncation, wildcards and stemming
Contrasting search features across free and commercial resources
Considering necessary steps for different search types: Patentability, Freedom to Operate and Validity
Practical search example applying these techniques

NOTE: Before registering for any of the individual webinars , please consider registering for the complete series to save money. Register for the Series HERE!

PIUG Course - Essential Techniques for Finding Freedom-to-Operate (FTO) (04 May 2025)

Sun, 04 May 2025 19:00:00 GMT

INSTRUCTOR: John Zabilski Chair, PIUG Education & Training Committee

Registered US Patent Agent (No. 59,626)

Qualified Patent Information Professional (No. 20190010100257)

It’s known by several names including Freedom to Practice or a clearance search. Without Freedom to Operate you may not be able to make, use or sell your invention. An FTO search looks for in-force patents in a geographic area of interest to avoid potential infringement. Discover what is required to complete a comprehensive search and identify what is still legally protected to better inform business decisions. This course provides understanding of the fundamental concepts of FTO, identifies essential resources for finding FTO and includes search examples demonstrating suggested approaches for FTO searches. Also learn how to utilize freely accessible resources to determine what is legally in-force such as INPADOC and national patent office registers as well as vendor-based alternatives. Whether you are new to performing FTO searches or more experienced, this course provides focused techniques that save your time and make you more effective in achieving accurate results.

This course is offered as a virtual course for those not attending the PIUG 2025 Annual Conference in-person or participating as a virtual registrant of the conference.

Available live in-person/virtually online or access on-demand afterwards!

Patsnap PIUG Silver Sponsor Webinar (28 Oct 2026)

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 14:00:00 GMT

PIUG MONTHLY Calendar - October 28, 2026

Beyond Boolean: How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of Patent Search

Join the PIUG (Patent Information User Group) for a

FREE Patsnap PIUG Silver Sponsor Webinar

Wednesday October 28th at 10 AM EDT

Live Event Open to the Public

PIUG Members Can Also Access the Recording After the Meeting

Patent search is moving fast, from matching keywords to understanding concepts to AI agents that plan, search, and refine. But the bigger shift is what happens next: search is becoming part of a connected innovation workflow.

Matthew Birch, European and UK Patent Attorney and Patsnap's AI Solutions Lead for IP, draws on 15+ years of prosecution and litigation experience to explore the evolution from Boolean to semantic to agentic search. He examines how AI trained on years of deep technical and legal data is bringing search and drafting together, with discoveries informing drafting decisions and patent strategy within a single platform. The session explores what this convergence means for patent information, IP strategy, and R&D, and how organizations can turn expanding AI capabilities into better-informed decisions, stronger patents, and new opportunities.

Biography

Matthew Birch is a European and UK Patent Attorney with more than 15 years of experience in IP. Before joining Patsnap, he worked at leading European and global firms, specializing in patent prosecution, opposition and litigation across medical devices, renewable energy, and artificial intelligence. As AI Solutions Lead for IP at Patsnap, Matthew leads the product roadmap for the company's agentic patent drafting solutions, bringing a practitioner's perspective to how AI can support high-stakes patent work.

The session will be recorded and available on demand for PIUG Members at PIUG Education and Training

Please share this announcement with your colleagues and post to your professional association calendars.