Its goal is to support, assist, improve and enhance the success of patent information professionals through leadership, education, communication, advocacy and networking.
[1] PIUG maintains a membership of over 700 patent professionals from 30 countries with the largest concentration of members from the USA, Europe and Japan.
[3] PIUG was founded in the United States in 1988 by an ad hoc group of patent information scientists working in the chemical, pharmaceutical, petroleum, and technology industries.
[4][5] PIUG was formed "out of a need for patent information professionals to discuss issues of concern independent of vendors and publishers.
"[6] Founding members wanted to develop open communication among individual patent searchers and database producers in order to supplement existing conversations generally limited to database producers and customer companies’ managers at subscriber meetings and intercompany managers conferences.