I added a new link in the Tools sub-menu under the USA menu.  The new link takes you to a set of Patent Tools provided by the Maxval Group.  The Patent Tools include  a beta reference picker, a patent term calculator, and a claim chart generator.  Thanks to Samuel Crumpton for the tip.  

I added Patent Retriever as an option for the search menu.  Patent Retriever allows free bulk downloads of US, PCT and European patents in PDF format.  Although Pat2Pdf and Braindex offer a similar service, I included Patent Retriever because of the ability to bulk download and mix which office you are downloading from.  Simply include the two letter country code before each patent number and separate each patent with a space.  You can bulk download up to 10 patents at a time.  I also included an entry in the Help menu for future reference.  Thanks to John Segal for this service.

IPVision's See the Forest search engine is now available from the drop-down search menu.  However, it is currently only working with Internet Explorer.

You now have the option of searching Chinese patent abstracts.  The Chinese patent office recently released machine translation of Chinese patents into English as well. 

 Thanks to Javier Torrejon for the suggestion.

I received an email recently regarding the possibility of having a custom My Feeds menu rather than individual rss feed buttons.  I have looked into this but haven't been able to find a way to enable it yet.  However, here is a possible workaround if you have a number of feeds you would like to add.  Try using a service like www.fwicki.com  which allows you to create a custom feed made up of individual feeds.  You can the create an RSS button on the Patent Pal linking to that custom combined feed.  This will allow you to have just one RSS feed with entries from a variety of individual feeds. 

I updated the technical glossary to remove Wikipedia from the search results.  The results should now be more useful.  The following sites are currently searched by the Technical Glossary search:

 

 

In addition to being able to add personal links and RSS feeds, a new option to the custom menu has been added.  This new option provides a convenient way for users to submit links to be added to the pre-installed menus.  For example, if you would like to see a new link included in the blogs menu, you can submit that link URL using the "Suggest a Link" option in the custom menu.  Please include your name if you would like me to give you credit for the link on this blog.

Well, after many hours of banging my head, I was finally able to get the scripts to work for customizing the Patent Pal.  You should now see a new menu item labeled "Custom".  Its icon is a green circle with a check in it.  On the menu are three options: My Menu, Add RSS feed, and Add Link Button.  The "My Menu" enables you to create a menu of links.  You will need to provide the link name and URL.  The "Add RSS feed" option adds an RSS feed button to your toolbar.  You will need to provide the URL and Feed name.  Optionally, you can change the default icon location.  Finally, the "Add Link Button" option adds a link button to your toolbar.  You will need to provide the URL and Link name.  Optionally, you can change the default tooltip and icon location.  I will post additional details on using these new tools to customize the Patent Pal.  I hope you enjoy your new control and freedom. :)   

 

Note:  The My Menu option uses a cookie placed on your computer to store the links that you add.  So, do not delete the cookie from thepatentpal.com or you will lose all of your entered links.  Email support@thepatentpal.com with any questions.

 

I added some basic links to information about the EQE under the Exam menu.  For example, there are links to the different examination papers in the compendium.  Thanks to Fredrick De Maré for the suggestion.

I added a new RSS feed menu for William K. Mclaughlin Job Openings.  There are 28 different feed categories, each of which shows up to the most 20 recent openings.  To my knowledge, this is another exclusive feature of the Patent Pal as RSS feeds are not even available directly from the William K. Mclaughlin web site. 

 

Update:  Due to new layout for the William K. Mclaughlin site, only the 10 most recent job postings appear in the RSS feeds.