Article One Partners Announces Winners for Veterans Program

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - May 23, 2013) - After six weeks of intensive education and training in patent research, web-based career learning sessions and competitive research projects, Jason Maples of California bested more than 20 other veterans who participated in the Article One Partners Veterans Program.

Article One Partners (AOP), the world's largest patent research community, announced on May 16th that Mr. Maples, an Iraq war veteran, will receive an additional $5,000 for his exemplary performance in the research projects, also called Studies, conducted during the program. Mr. Maples received $2,500 for his success in the Studies that were meant to provide participating veterans with hands-on experience in patent research. "I did not expect to win going in, and after the first study, I especially did not think I had a chance, because I knew I had some strong competition," says Mr. Maples. Other winners include Brian McFerron of Missouri and Andrew Baker of California, who each received $1,000.

"I would like to congratulate all the winners and thank all the participants for their contributions to the program. AOP is honored to provide this much needed service to our veterans," said Cheryl Milone, CEO and founder of AOP. "Throughout the program, the veterans demonstrated discipline in adapting to a new challenge and an ability to perform under stress. With the new patent research skills and knowledge that they have acquired, I hope that they continue to participate in our Studies."

For Mr. McFerron, a librarian and a post-Vietnam Navy veteran, the career learning sessions were the most vital part of the program. "The career learning sessions got me thinking about working towards becoming a patent researcher or a patent agent. Perhaps this is a turn towards using my library skills to do patent-related work frequently," says Mr. McFerron. "I will definitely continue working on my patent research skills by participating in more AOP Studies."

The AOP Veterans Program included career learning sessions with Hewlett-Packard, Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi, Life Technologies and the USPTO.

"We were thrilled to participate in the AOP Veterans Program," said Frederick Steckler, Chief Administrative Officer at the USPTO and a U.S. Navy veteran, who provided a career learning session for the participants. "Hiring veterans and transitioning service members remains a top priority for the USPTO, and so we welcomed further targeted engagement with that community."

For AOP, this is just the start of the company's efforts to help veterans transition to civilian life. "We know that veterans have the unique skills that are essential to succeed on our crowdsourcing platform. This is just the beginning of our ongoing commitment to support veterans find meaningful work. We continue to welcome veterans to work on our platform and enhance their research skills by participating on our Studies," adds Ms. Milone.

For veterans interested in learning more about AOP's crowdsourcing platform, visit http://www.articleonepartners.com. 

About Article One Partners
Article One Partners (AOP) has revolutionized the transparency of patent data. Today, AOP is the world's largest patent research community. The company has distributed requests for prior art research to more than one million scientists and technologists using a global online human search engine. AOP is active in 170 countries and is exceptionally successful in identifying non-textual and non-patent literature. The company is a partner to 16 Fortune 100 companies, 51 Forbes Global 2000 and 7 of the top 10 US patent filers. AOP's client satisfaction rate exceeds 90%.

AOP has a distinguished Board, led by Marshall Phelps, the former head of patents and licensing at IBM and Microsoft. Founded in 2008 by patent community leader, inventor and entrepreneur, CEO Cheryl Milone, the company's product offerings have been called "revolutionary" and "game changing" by leading authorities. In short, many consider AOP to be the new industry standard.