Conference Speakers

James Loftus, Ph.D.

Principal, Loftus Technical Consulting, LLC

BIOGRAPHY

Loftus has held numerous positions in sales, leadership, and innovation. He has over 30 years of experience in a variety of materials based technologies including nonwovens, composites, and building materials. From 2015 until 2018 Loftus was INDA’s Director of Education & Technical Affairs. From 1992 until 2015 he held a variety of positions with Owens Corning. During his tenure at Owens Corning, Loftus was closely involved with Product Stewardship bringing his materials and environmental knowledge to bear on new products and processes. He holds a BS, MS, and Ph.D. in Polymer Science and Engineering from Penn State University. Loftus currently holds 20 US patents and has numerous patent applications. He currently is Principal of the newly formed Loftus Technical Consulting firm.

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Using the US Patent Database as a Strategic Tool

The US Patent database can offer tremendous insight to scientists, engineers, marketers, product designers, etc. Knowing what information it contains and how to navigate through the maze of data is not necessarily intuitive. There are powerful software packages and services available today that can provide both specific and general information on US and foreign patents. However, there are simple concepts and strategies that can be used to glean a significant amount of information from the database. This presentation will give a snapshot of certain strategies and data from a brief look at patents and patent applications dealing with “nonwovens”.