This week's featured patent discloses a device for evacuating smoke that is produced by electrocautery surgical devices.

Consultancy firm Interbrand released its Best Global Brands 2013 list yesterday, announcing that Apple is the most valuable brand in the world. Tech companies make up four of the top five spots on the list. For the first time in the list's 14-year history, Coca-Cola was not listed at the top, falling instead to third after Apple and Google.

Has the United States Patent and Trademark Office joined the 21st century? The online USPTO patent database now allows users to download a pdf file of the entire patent (or patent application). Previously, we had two options to view patents:

According to this article in USA Today, Toyota received a hefty 1,491 U.S. patents in 2012, the most of any automaker and an increase of 30% from the previous year. The number of patents granted was reported by the Intellectual Property Owners Association.

Several months ago, I blogged about reduced micro-entity fees, which will soon be available for qualifying patent applicants. As discussed in this blog post, the micro-entity provisions may have a loophole to let anybody qualify for the 75% fee reduction, just by providing a license to a qualifying institution of higher education.

According to this week's featured patent, railroad axles are usually one piece and therefore the wheels are fixed to each other in rotation. This arrangement causes problems when the railcar goes around a corner, because the outside wheel wants to turn faster . . .

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has published an invitation for comments regarding the possibility of lower trademark application fees. According to the notice published in the Federal Register, the lower fees would be only for applications filed electronically. The purpose of the lower fees is to incentivize applicants to use the electronic filing system (which reduces the USPTO's costs relative to paper applications).

This week's featured patent discloses a device for cleaning air filters on vehicles used in off-road and other environments that quickly saturate the air filter with particulate matter.

This week's featured patent is an armor system that could be used for aircraft, armored vehicles, and body armor. The invention includes a multi-layer design, with a core material that is coated with a second material.

Today's featured patent is a chemical vapor deposition system for fabricating integrated circuits. Chemical vapor deposition is a process commonly used to deposit a very thin layer on a semiconductor or other substrate.