Attorney and owner Lindy Laurence and attorney Nicole Hetz of Rational Unicorn Legal Services teaching a class on Trademarks and Copyright Photo by Tara Nash

The work for entrepreneurs and inventors to protect their products via patents and trademarks can be mind-bogglingly bureaucratic and difficult to understand. What’s more, the slightest misstep can cause a patent or trademark application to be denied, leaving the inventor back at square one. It can be frustrating, not to mention overwhelming when the inventor tries to determine how to get help.

Tara Nash, librarian at Multnomah County Library in Portland, OR, was developing small business classes in 2021 and realized how strong the demand for assistance was. “In our area, we saw a great need for building up our local innovation and local entrepreneurs, especially coming out of the pandemic,” she said. “In doing research, I felt like becoming a PTRC [Patent and Trademark Resource Center] was a natural extension of our work.”

At the time, Nash was a small business librarian who saw the need from attendees of small business classes and one-on-one programs the library offered. “Portland, Oregon is such a hub of innovation and a ground zero for invention,” she said. “It was really hard for our local community to not have local resources. People came in with questions about intellectual property. What is intellectual property, and what intellectual property do I need to protect? Do I need to trademark this? Is this something I can copyright? Is this something I can patent? What’s a trade secret? Unfortunately, when I looked for resources for them, most of the resources were out of state.”

BRINGING THE RESOURCES HOME

That meant inventors and entrepreneurs had to look for answers in far-flung areas including Seattle or San José when what they wanted was help in their back yard. In doing more research, Nash learned about the possibility of developing a PTRC in the library, an option that was finalized when the library was designated as a PTRC in December 2024. The service’s development had roots in other events happening at the time in addition to community need. “We were going through a staffing reorganization and just had a huge bond measure that came through, so we were refreshing and rebuilding a lot of libraries in our system,” Nash said. “That work influenced what we were doing in the PTRC as well.” Even though Multnomah received the designation in late 2024, the grand opening didn’t occur until this past October.

While the grand opening was delayed, the PTRC was still open for business. Word got out, and people showed up right away. Once the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) published the designation on its website, Nash started getting calls—a steady stream of inquiries and visits with questions regarding different aspects of patents and trademarks. She’s also helped patrons submit applications for provisional patents. “When we’re working with solo entrepreneurs or very small businesses, micro businesses, they don’t have the resources to hire a law firm. They don’t have the ability to go out there on their own and easily find what they need.”

Nash doesn’t always know the outcome of those inquiries, although she has had patrons return to let her know about the success of their provisional patent or trademark applications.

NO LONGER ALONE IN OREGON

It turns out Nash wasn’t the only library group that saw demand for a local PTRC. When she learned that Multnomah’s PTRC had received its official designation, she also learned that Oregon State University in Corvallis had also earned the classification. But Nash says it’s about as far from being a competition as it could be. “We see ourselves as a hub for Oregon, for the entire state,” she says. “They’re an academic library, we’re a public library. The academics going for patents and trademarks are a good fit for the university library, while the public library is a great fit for the small business owners and solo entrepreneurs.”

In addition, the Lewis and Clark Law School Library has a small business legal clinic that includes a patent program. But Lewis and Clark doesn’t have the financial or staff resources for a full PTRC designation, so it works with Oregon small businesses that meet a number of criteria. The patent program has limited access and only handles a few clients each semester, and clientele must be based in Oregon. Nash’s program at Multnomah County Library can help those who don’t qualify for the law library’s help, and entrepreneurs don’t have to be from Oregon.

NOT FULL-TIME YET

Currently Nash is the only staff member working at the PTRC, and she estimates it takes about 25 percent of her time. “I’m a programming librarian, so I do a lot of small business and technology classes for the public, and I just added PTRC on top of that.”

But she believes the PTRC will grow. “As our inventor and entrepreneur network hears about this resource and it starts getting out into the ecosystem, I believe I’m going to get more and more people. Just with our grand opening, I already had an increase in the amount of people I’m meeting and who have been coming to my programs.” She wants to see other librarians train in the PTRC work, instruction that the USPTO provides. That training takes a week and teaches the librarians the nuts and bolts of patents and patent searching, trademarks and trademark searching, and intellectual property.

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR OTHER LIBRARIES

Nash sees opening a PTRC as an extension of one of a public library’s greatest strengths: community trust. “We have a great trust with our community, especially for people just starting out on this journey. A lot of people experience barriers to federal services, and we’re a safe space for them to come and get the information.” Among the barriers inventors and entrepreneurs face is the daunting bureaucracy around patent and trademark law and how to navigate it without being able to afford legal assistance. The applications alone can be complex and multifaceted, with layers of requirements that can be difficult to understand.

She also sees the PTRC as a way not just of helping local inventors and entrepreneurs, but the local economy. “That’s one of the great things about a library. As a champion of democracy, we’re able to offer these services to everyone in our community. Everybody has an equal shot.”

Nash encourages interested libraries to reach out to the USPTO, which she said was a wonderful resource. “They take you in hand, they give you all the training. It’s really just a matter of staff time. And the benefit to the community is amazing.”

And if library staff are concerned about providing legal advice, the training will put their minds at ease. “The USPTO does a great job of delineating what services we can actually provide as a PTRC and what we can’t,” said Nash. “Primarily, we can show people how to search for patents and trademarks using the USPTO databases. And that’s what we do as librarians. We’re experts in searching databases, and for this, we’re just doing it with a very specific type of database.” In other words, librarians don’t necessarily need to develop an extensive set of additional skills, since this taps into skills they likely already have.

Even if a local university or law library has resources, Nash thinks it’s still valuable for the public library to consider developing a PTRC. “Even university libraries...sometimes have barriers to accessing the resources,” she says. “You have to have a parking permit, or you have to have a student ID to use the computers. But we don’t have those kinds of barriers. The public library can provide a vital service that’s awesome.”