In response to the President's Open Government Initiative, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has partnered with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) to make data more easily accessible.

"An important element of that transparency is making valuable public patent and trademark information more widely available in a bulk form so companies and researchers can download it for analysis and research," said PTO Secretary David Kappos in a statement.

The PTO currently lacks the capacity to provide such information in a bulk, machine readable format and the agreement with Google will serve as a bridge until a means to distribute this data is formally acquired. The PTO and Google have entered into a no-cost, two-year agreement. The agency estimates that nearly ten terabytes of information will be made available through this service.

Formerly, the PTO's public data has only been available through a fee-based system. Data that will be accessible include: Patent grants and published applications, trademark applications, trademark trial and appeal board proceedings, patent classification information, patent maintenance fee events, and patent and trademark assignments.

For more:
- see the press release from the Patent and Trademark Office
- check out the Google Patents site

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