Did you know that over 1,200 patents expired prematurely last week due to a failure to pay applicable maintenance fees? Did you know that a similar number expire every week for the same reason?

It’s true. And we’re making sure that you’ll know about it when it affects the patents you’re reviewing on PatentFizz. Over the last couple weeks, we’ve put the final touches on a workflow that allows us to tag each and every patent that expires for failure to pay maintenance fees. We’re adding a comment to each patent that provides the expiration date, a link to the USPTO Official Gazette notice of the expiration, and a couple of links that provide more information on the legal aspect of maintenance fees.

Want an example? Check out the comments on patent 5,442,530. Or 5,933,863.  Or even 6,604,251.  Beautiful, isn’t it?

We’ll be adding comments to every patent that expires this way each week. And we’re going back in time, too. We’ll update our coverage here on the blog, so keep watching.

How do you use this feature? Simple…just look for expiration comments when pulling up a FizzDisplay of a patent.  When you see one, you’ll know that the patent expired for failure to pay a maintenance fee.  You’ll immediately know the exact date on which the patent expired, and you can verify it with one-click access to the official OG Notice regarding the expiration.

How’s that for public notice?

We’re well aware of the pesky reinstatement rules that allow the USPTO to reinstate these expired patents in certain circumstances…and we’re working on it.  Look for an all new-feature that deals with these situations in coming weeks.

We’re quite proud of this new feature, and we hope you find it useful. To our knowledge, PatentFizz is the first place on the web that presents expiration information alongside the patent text