Each year, US patent and trademark practitioners need to count up how many patents and trademark registrations they obtained for clients in the previous year, for submission to the toteboards.
A trademark search at USPTO’s Trademark Search that worked for our firm is:
AT:oppedahl AND RD:[2025-01-01 TO 2025-12-31]
Now to turn to patent searches. What naturally comes to mind is the idea that maybe the USPTO’s Patent Public Search would permit a practitioner to get the answer.
But USPTO’s Patent Public Search has, objectively, the worst search user interface that one could devise.
There are several reasons why Patent Public Search is a failure. The essential source of failure is that it was never designed for normal public users. It was designed solely for patent examiners. It was specifically designed and laid out for the enormous computer screens that USPTO’s patent examiners use.
A related source of failure is that the documentation fails for normal public users. The only types of searches for which the documentation is near-adequate are those routinely carried out by examiners. No effort was made to provide even mere token documentation for searches that normal public users would try.
Now we turn to how to get numbers for the toteboards. Suppose you are looking for design patents obtained for clients during 2025. Here is a search that worked for our firm:
( S.AT.) AND oppedahl.ATTY. AND “2025”.PY.
Suppose you are looking for utility patents obtained for clients during 2025. Here is a search that worked for our firm:
(B1.AT. or B2.AT.) AND oppedahl.ATTY. AND “2025”.PY.
The remaining patent search is for plant patents obtained for clients during 2025. Here is a search that worked for our firm:
( P2.AT.) AND oppedahl.ATTY. AND “2025”.PY.