Dr. Stuart M. Kaback – IPI Award Recipient 2001
(Source – PIUG Bulletin Board, May 2001)
Dr. Stuart
Kaback, long time advocate and spokesperson for patent information groups, is
being honored as the recipient of the 'International Patent Information (IPI)
Award' 2001.
The news was
heard by over 270 information professionals attending the Patent Information
Users Group (PIUG) Annual Conference in Arlington, Virginia, on May 1st,
2001. The announcement was made by Dr.
Ian Sinclair, Head of Information Resources at Pfizer UK and Chairman of the
Award Selection Board, an international body responsible for reviewing the
nominations. He praised the
achievements of Dr. Kaback and his overwhelming contribution to the patent
information community. The audience
enthusiastically greeted the announcement with a prolonged standing ovation as
Dr. Kaback acknowledged the honor. His
wife, Marilyn, and other family members were also present for the occasion.
40 Years
of Dedicated Service and Achievement
During a
career that has stretched over 40 years, Dr. Kaback has been a prominent figure
in the international patent searching community for most of that time. Dr. Kaback joined the Exxon Research &
Engineering Company in 1960 after gaining a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from
Columbia University. He is now Senior
Scientific Advisor at ExxonMobil, attaining one of the highest levels in the
technical ladder. His extensive career
as a patent information specialist and his involvement in numerous advisory
groups is widely recognized as having significantly influenced the patent
information industry. Over the last few
decades, Dr. Kaback has been the champion of patent user issues, particularly
with respect to advocating improvements in the quality, indexing and
functionality of information services.
His
accomplishments include serving on a number of industry committees such as the
American Chemical Society (ACS) Board Council Committee on Chemical Abstracts
Service, Derwent Quality Committee, Questel-Orbit User Advisory Committee, and
ten years on the American Petroleum Institute (API) Patent Task Force (Founding
Chair). He is also a founding member of
the Patent Information Users Group. His
honors include the Herman Skolnik Award for chemical information, presented to
him by the ACS in 1999.
Dr. Patricia
Lorenz, Head of Information Research and Analysis at ExxonMobil affirms: "Stu Kaback has been, and continues to
be, a tireless advocate of high quality in the information services that are
the mainstay of the patent searching community. His service on quality committees has been responsible for countless
improvements and innovative developments with respect to Derwent products,
Chemical Abstracts and the online hosts."
Dr. Kaback
is also well known for his papers and presentations given at venues worldwide,
including: ACS Meetings in the US; the
International Chemical Information Conference and European Patent Office EPIDOS
Meetings; and the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the Japan Plasdoc (Derwent
Polymer/Plastics Documentation Service) Association. Numerous other publications have included his regular column,
'Online Patent Information', published from 1982 to 1995 in 'World Patent
Information'. He has also co-authored
the section on patent information in the 4th Edition of the 'Kirk-Othmer
Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology', as well as serving on the Editorial
Advisory Boards of the 'Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences',
'CHEMTECH' and 'Database'.
Dr. Ian
Sinclair summed up Dr. Kaback's contributions as follows: "The man we are
honoring has been a vigorous and tireless advocate for the pursuit of
excellence in information services, demanding quality standards that are
critical to all of us in the patent information community. He has always ensured that the views and
needs of the information user are kept firmly in mind. As we have seen, he has devoted enormous
energy in working with vendors to achieve this goal. Dr. Kaback's work has had great impact and has significantly
contributed to countless improvements and many innovative developments in the
systems and services we all rely upon today".
Award
Background and Philosophy
The
'International Patent Information Award' is sponsored by Technology &
Patent Research (TPR) International Inc., and is directed by a Board of eminent
patent information industry professionals representing Europe, the United
States and Japan. The IPI Award
consists of a plaque and an honorarium of $2500.
"The
IPI Award was established to recognize those dedicated individuals who, through
their hard work, professional excellence and personal leadership, have made a
significant positive impact on the Patent Information Industry and the Patent
Information Profession," explained Ford Khorsandian, President of
TPR.
From its
base in San Diego, California, TPR International specializes in in-depth
searching of both patent and non-patent information online, manual searching of
document collections held worldwide, and provides patent intelligence services
to multi-national R&D based corporations and patent law firms.
Click here for
details of the 2001 IPI Award Presentation Ceremony to Dr. Stuart Kaback and
speech transcripts of the event.
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