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Abstract

Considers the value of patents as sources of business information in view of their variable and inconsistent quality, bearing in mind that only 2% of patented inventions become commercial products. Discusses a range of factors involved in using patent information, including: national and regional patents; access to patent information; and the role of specialist patent libraries (with particular reference to the British Library, Science Reference and Information Service (BL SRIS)); and the use of patents as indicators and sources of commercial intelligence, involving patent analysis by country and company and use of citation analysis techniques.

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References

[1] Eighth report, Office of Technology Assessment and Forecast, Department of Commerce, US Patent and Trademark Office , December 1977.

[2] J. F. Terrapane , ‘A unique source of information’ , Chemtech, 8, 1978, pp. 272–276 .

[3] J. Allen and C. Oppenheim , ‘The overlap of US and Canadian patent literature with journal literature’ , World Patent Information, 1, 1979, pp. 77–80 .

[4] D. Newton , ‘The current state of patents policy in the UK and internationally’ , Sciencehnolo, Tecgy and Innovation, (10)1, 1997, pp. 17–24 .

[5] W. Gewehr , ‘The information dissemination policy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office’ , World Patent Information, 18(2), June 1996, pp. 61–67 .

[6] For an overview of this subject based on US data see: Z. Griliches , ‘Patent statistics as economic indicators: a survey’ , Journal of Economic Literature, 28(4), Dec 1990, pp. 1661–1707 .

[7] Figures taken from: Industrial property statistics 1994 , a supplement to Industrial Property and Copyright 2(4), April 1996.

[8] See, for example, F. Narin , ‘Patent bibliometrics’ , Scientometrics, 30(1), May 1994, pp. 147–155 and database at URL: http://www.chiresearch.com/.

[9] Z. Deng , B. Lev and F. Narin , ‘Science and technology indicators as predictors of stock performance’. To be published 1998.

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[10] S van Dulken (1998) Introduction to patents information. 3rd ed. London, The Britsh Library .

Patents information: what’s in it for the business information user?

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