Free patent downloads from your desktop?

Patently Obvious: Patent Law Blog with the scoop (and comments) on Canadian attorney Peter Eliopoulos’ instructions [see note below]on how to install the pat2pdf script on your computer. I’m downloading it right now, but due to my schedule it may be next week before I have time to figure it out. I think that much of the automation that Peter wishes for could be done via ActiveWords scripting (www.activewords.com). Drop me a line if you are interested in the pat2pdf/ActiveWords project…

[note: at some point his website went AWOL. You can see a cached copy here: http://web.archive.org/web/20041009174951/http://www.intelprop.ca/blog/index.php/archives/2004/09/20/pat2pdf/. The script he mentions is here: http://web.archive.org/web/20041010035322/www.tothink.com/pat2pdf/pat2pdf]

UPDATE:

IT WORKS!!!

These are my comments to Peter’s instructions based on my experience:

Step 1. Note that there are two different sections here…Graphics and Web (I looked forever in Graphics for Web-lynx until I realized that they were two different sections).

Step 1. I didn’t know if I needed Bin and/or Src, so I downloaded both. If someone knows the answer…please clarify.

Step 2. The pat2pdf script downloads as a .txt file (pat2pdf.txt), but needs to be saved with no extension (just as “pat2pdf”).

Step 4. The “Cygwin Bash Shell” is aka cygwin.bat

Step 5. I can’t seem to get it to recognize the CD command…I may be missing a cygwin component…., however it still works, it just dumps the pdfs to C:\cygwin\home\Stephen M. Nipper\.

Peter lists a bunch of his “Next steps” with this project. My “Next steps” are (1) figure out the CD command issue; (2) generate ActiveWords scripts (www.activewords.com) (Buzz just sent me a “let me know if you need help with scripting” e-mail…so we’ll be set for scripting); and (3) see if I can burn the cygwin directory onto a CD-ROM (or copy across the network) and easily set up other computers in my office.

Stay tuned.