Jonathan Spadt`s presentation on intellectual property was focused on the drug Solabegron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solabegron ), which is a beta-3-adrenoceptor compound. In order to develop some additional background on searching for and understanding patents, please prepare a short write-up (bullet item lists are fine) in which you: 1--Identify the original 2 patents on beta-3-adrenoceptors that were assigned to Glaxo (the company name was Glaxo Wellcome at that time). When were these filed and when were they actually approved? 2--The Claims actually define what is covered by the patent. How many claims are there in the 2001 Glaxo patent? Read through the Claims and provide a brief summary. 3--What is "novel" in the 2001 Glaxo patent according to the inventors? 4--Identify all subsequent patents that reference the 2001 Glaxo patent. What companies filed these patents? There are a number of different web resources for searching patents. The ones I recommend are: www.uspto.gov (this is the official US government site) and www.google.com/patents. There is also information available on patent searching through the Penn State libraries at http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/pams/patent.html.