PIUG - Membership Benefits

Membership Fees

Membership is based on the calendar year. Renewals after October 1 are effective until December 31 of the following year. Effective January 1, 2010, the one-year membership fee is $50 (US) and includes the member benefits listed below. A discounted annual membership fee of $25 (US) is available for full-time students, full-time retirees and those unemployed at the time of renewal. We also offer a discounted membership fee to individuals from lower income, emerging countries (as defined by the World Bank).

If you are joining or renewing as an Active member of PIUG and your country is listed on the World Bank's list of Emerging Countries, you will receive a 50% discount off the Active membership cost upon checkout.

To join or renew membership to PIUG, click the appropriate link to the secure pages:

Member Enrollment - New Member

Member Enrollment - Renewal

To check your existing membership profile and make any changes please click below:

Member Profile

Questions about Membership: Contact PIUG Membership and Dues Committee Chairperson Malcolm Hallam, malcolm.hallam @ chch.oxon.org .

Member Benefits

• PIUG Membership Directory (Members-only site).
• Reduced registration fees for PIUG conferences: the PIUG Annual Conference (May), PIUG Boston Biotech meeting (February) and PIUG Northeast Conference (October).
• Reduced subscription rates such as for World Patent Information magazine
• Reduced registration for other meetings such as the IPWARE SUMMIT
• Access to Annual, Biotech, and Northeast Conference Proceedings (Members-only wiki access).
• PIUG Newsletter and Newsletter Archive Access (the cover page of the most recent issue is available to all).
• PIUG Salary Survey and Access to Previous Surveys (Members-only wiki access).
• Enhanced functionality on PIUG wiki.
• Ongoing professional training through conference venues and sponsors.
• Access to the PIUG LinkedIn group.

Who is PIUG?

PIUG has approximately 700 active members representing 27 countries including the United States. The largest concentration of members is from the USA, Europe and Japan. PIUG members are patent attorneys, patent agents, licensing professionals, patent information researchers, patent information vendors, and patent information and documentation experts from the U.S. and abroad.

We have nearly 300 patent information professionals who do patent searching for corporations, over 100 patent information consultants, over 80 patent information professionals who do patent searching for law firms, and about 20 searchers based in academic institutions. We are employed in performing patentability, freedom-to-practice, and validity patent searches for Fortune 500 / multinational companies, leading universities and major IP law firms. In recent years, PIUG members have also engaged in patent information analysis as a strategic innovation tool.

PIUG has an active Discussion Forum that is featured on the PIUG wiki, a global collaborative tool with with nearly 800 subscribers world-wide and produce a newsletter twice a year. In addition, we have presence in professional and social networking channels, such as LinkedIn and Twitter. The PIUG newsletter contains members' articles, salary survey results, search tips, meeting trip reports, and information on patent database vendor and producer developments. Get to know us and meet the PIUG Officers.

Brief History

The Patent Information Users Group (PIUG) was established in 1988. The objective of the group was to create a forum to discuss issues and concerns relevant to the patent searcher community. PIUG promotes the importance of intellectual property, especially patent publications, and most specifically, the computerized patent databases. Since 1988, PIUG has worked with intellectual property database producers and vendors to maintain and to improve the quality of their product from the customer, or user, perspective. Please see the PIUG History page for much more information about PIUG.