PIUG 2013 Annual Conference
An International Conference for Patent Information Professionals

Celebrating our Past 25 Years... Preparing for Our Future:
Best Practices for Keeping Up with the Rapidly Changing Patent Landscape

Call for Papers

We are pleased to announce the call for papers for the PIUG 2013 Annual Conference to be held April 27 - May 2, 2013 at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center, Alexandria, VA.  The theme for this 25th annual conference is "Celebrating our Past 25 Years....Preparing for Our Future: Best Practices for Keeping Up with the Rapidly Changing Patent Landscape."  This conference will mark PIUG's 25th year and the 15th anniversary of the first independent, multi-day meeting, also held in the Washington DC area. Please submit your abstracts to andrea dot koble @ gmail dot com or rkaminecki2001 @ aol dot com.

We are particularly interested in presentations from patent information users working in-house or as outside providers, patent offices, IP firms, universities and others who are able to discuss one of the following topics:

• Best practices in patent searching, reporting and analyzing - we want to hear from patent information professionals who are willing to share their best practices and go-to tools for searching, reporting and analysis of patent information.
   
• Defining quality - presentations on must-haves when it comes to search methodology, reporting, tools.
   
• Patent Landscapes - 'real life' examples of how patent research and analysis has been successfully applied to obtain useful information for the new kinds of information clients are requesting. Talks about data or text mining or data visualization, as well as semantic analysis are particularly encouraged.
   
• Updates from Patent Offices - presentations regarding updates on advances and changes to practices of any one of the IP5 patent offices as well as any other national patent offices. Talks from patent office staff as well as others having practical knowledge of this aspect are invited, especially about the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) and America Invents Act (AIA).
   
• Changes in the near future - we'd like to get presentations on how the CPC and AIA will change the kinds of patent research and analysis we will conduct in the next five years. Patent attorneys, agents or management providing insight in their expectations and forecasting of issues are also welcome.
   
• Patent Analysis Tools - talks on how to go about choosing the best tools for your department and how to justify the cost.
   
• Patent Valuation - presentations highlighting tools and strategies for evaluating the strength of a patent.

If any of the above or related themes fall into your area of expertise then we would like to hear from you!

Please send your presentation title, abstract, proposed speaker name, company name, brief biography and full contact information to andrea dot koble @ gmail.com or rkaminecki2001 @ aol dot com on or before Friday February 1, 2013 for full consideration.

If you think you may be interested in speaking but require management approval beforehand, please let us know so that we can begin to consider your general proposal for a paper in the meantime (submission of just a few descriptive sentences will be sufficient).

In order to provide more time for questions and interaction with the audience we will be accepting fewer presentations this year, allowing more time for speakers and allowing more time for questions. In addition, presentations will need to be provided to the Program Committee prior to the Annual Conference for review and feedback before being loaded into the presentation system.

The organizers reserve the right to accept abstracts at their discretion in order to assemble the best possible program. Invited speakers may take precedence over other speakers. Please be advised that your abstract submission may be published on the internet or elsewhere, shortly after receipt or at any time thereafter. Therefore, do not include confidential or business-sensitive information in your abstract.

All plenary speakers are entitled to free registration at the conference.

If you would like to make a recommendation for a speaker on a particular topic or suggest another topic of interest, we would appreciate hearing from you. Please do not hesitate to contact the 2013 PIUG Annual Conference organizers with your views.

Further news about the program and updates regarding the conference will be posted on the PIUG Discussion Forum (PIUG-DF) and on this PIUG website.

Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to seeing you at the PIUG 2013 Annual Conference!

Andrea Davis and Ron Kaminecki, Co-Chairs - Program Committee

Susanne Hantos and Jim Brown, Co-Chairs - Planning Committee