Shifts like COVID-19 prompt big innovation. Big societal shifts tend to create new requirements for innovative products and solutions. As the spread of COVID-19 accelerates across the globe, everyone wants to find a way to tackle the pandemic, from Governments asking manufacturers to urgently make vital equipment to inventors creating innovative solutions. The IP Marketplace Platform called “Patents 4 Partnerships” is an initiative of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that brings together those who have filed patents for inventions and want to make them available for licensing and those who have an interest in and the ability to commercialize the inventions.

If you want to make your inventions available for licensing, the IP Marketplace Platform provides a centralized and easily accessible place to list U.S. patents and patent application publications. It offers to potential licensees a database of available technologies that permits searches using a variety of parameters.

The IP Marketplace Platform provides a voluntary listing of patents and patent application publications indicated as “available for licensing” on external public websites or in the USPTO Official Gazette Notices. It also offers a link to sources that include the licensing information. In view of the current public health situation, the initial release of the IP Marketplace Platform focuses on listing technologies related to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of COVID-19, including, for example, personal protective equipment, disinfectants, ventilators, testing equipment and components thereof. With this new search tool, the USPTO seeks to facilitate the arrival of critical inventions to the market to meet the challenges of this crisis.

Big Shifts like COVID-19 prompt big innovations that need to be developed and protected. I look forward to helping you develop and protect your ideas and inventions.