organization ofpatented information

Annals of Library Science and Documentation1982,29(4), 153-158.

ORGANIZATION OF PATENTED INFORMATION

The itr portance of patents as source of S&Tinformation has been emphasized. Policies regardingtheir procurement and organisation are discussed.Aspects of information service from the patentliterature are dealt with.

1 DEFINITION OF PATENT

A patent is briet1y defined as a "Government grant ofexclusive privilege of making or selling the new inven-tions". In this context, "invention" refers to some-thing which concerns "Manufacture". Essentialrequirements of a patentable invention usually are(i) manner of manufacture, (ii) novelty, (iii) inventiveingenuity, (iv) utility and (v) law and morality. Thusproducts, methodologies and inventions only can bepatented. Theories and ideas are always excluded.The inventor(s) is/an; guaranteed with the sole rightfor certain period of years (14 years in India) to useor sale the invention(s). "Patent system now operatein most countries of the world. Each year more thana million patent documents are published by some 70countries, with Japan leading the field".(3) (seeTable 1)

2 WHAT IS CONTAINED IN A PATENT

A patent document contains the following informa-tion.

(1) Patent Number - Serial number assigned to apatent with the name of the country at the timeof issue. Under ICIREPAT systems a two-lettercountry code has been developed.

(2) Date of issue - The date from which the securityis assured to the inventor(s) and the period ofprotection is calculated i.e. the Priority Date.

(3) Date of Application & Serial No.

(4) Title

(5) Name of the Patentee

Vol 29 No 4 Dee 1982

NANDA DULAL BASAKBINOD BIHAR DASIndian Statistical Institute Library'202 Barrackp ore Trunk RoadCalcutta 700035

(6) Classification No. - According to the PatentOffice Classification and/or International Patent,Classification.

(7) Specifications - Body of the patent includingdetailed technical information both in literaryand graphical form.

2.1 Kinds of Patents

In addition to the conventional ones, there are threemore special kinds of patents -

(1) Patents of addition - Patented invention, furtherimproved and modified either by. the originalinventor or some one else is protected by it.

(2) Secret Patents . Invention(s) relating to instru-ments and ammunitions of war is/are grantedsecret patent.

(3) Priority Patents - These are granted under a reci-procal priority arrangements established bet-ween the home country and a few Common-wealth countries.

3 IMPORTANCE OF PATENT

About one third of the S&T information generated iscontained in the patent documents alone. About500,000 patents of new solutions, trends, and newtechniques filed each year throughout the world is amine of S&T information. It is also a practical truththat certain inventions could only be known throughpatents and no other form of scientific publicationmedia. Studies in UK, USA show only 10% of patent-ed technology are reported in non-patent technologyliterature. "S&T information is primarily to be foundin patent documents besides books, reports andperiodicals ... ,,(3)

The stock of information on new technologicalprocesses may be enriched by a good collection ofpatent documents relevant to the interest of thatparticular library and its users. The development of

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Table 1: Patent pubtications issued upto 1980(according to WIPO estimate)

Country Japan F R G France USA USSR U K NetherlandsNumbers 300,000 134,000 70,000 70,000 45,000 45,000 26,000

% of Total 11.1 4.96 2.59 2.59 1.66 1.66 0.96

Italy Canada Switzerland India Others TotalAustrali~ Spain

25,000 25,000 22,000 20,000

0.92 0.92 0.81 0.74

such a patent based library/information service isessential for the furtherance of R&D projects.Patents,being one of the primary published sources of infer-mation, limited to new inventions, do' have import·ance to the inventors as these aid in avoiding duplica-tion by unfolding the so far advancements. Thisserves the interests of the nation and its economy.The information disclosed in a patent, but not cover-ed by the claims sections, may freely be used withoutpermission. These ideas once known may stimulatedevelopments in other fields.

There may be two circles of users of patents -i) inner circle: who need them for legal/technicalpurposes and ii) outer circle: who need them assource of information on technological development.

The industrialists, the manufacturers and theentrepreneurs will find in patent a major source ofinformation which can accelerate the growth of pa-tents for newer inventions, development of industrialproducts and inter- or intra-state technology transfer.So, the patent literature demands distinctive treat-ment in a technical library as it is a significant part ofthe library's resources.

4 PROCUREMENT & ORGANISATION OFPATENT

Patent Offices are at the apex of the patent system.To know about the availability of new patents, onecan depend profitably on various publications ofpatent offices, such as, Patent Office Handbook,Guide to inventors, notifications regarding newpatents in the National Gazette, Patent Office Journaland Annual reports. For acquisition, it is necessary toscan these sources of information regularly.

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4,000 3,000 215,000 27mi IIion

0.14 0.11 0.79 100

Other sources of information on new patents,include reviews published in scientific and technicaljournals of the relevant fields, indexing and abstract-ing journals, commercial periodicals devoted solely orpartially to patents, patent digests, patent journalsand lists published occassionally (for example seeTable 2). Regular scanning of the lists of additionspublished by large libraries, keeping in touch withthe periodical publications of different research orga-nisations and industrial houses, and looking throughthe stock of Patent Office and Patent InspectionCentres (58 such centres now exist in India) are tobe regularly done. Many Patent Offices issue abridge-ments of patents granted. These may be searched.After collecting information regarding the publica-tion of new patents, relevant to library's need, app-roach should preferably be made direct to the patentoffices of the respective countries. The patents beingmostly government documents, acquisition of theseare not possible through other procurement methods.So, approach is to be made direct to the officeconcerned without any intermediate vending agentunless otherwise specially engaged by the respectivepatent office. For any retrospect patent, rather thanthe recent ones, distributors/agents specialised indealing with government publications should be con:tacted first and then only a rare book supplier may beengaged.

When the interest of an organisation is welldefined, it is advisable to place standing orders withthe Patent Offices. If the required patent is notavailable with the Patent Office concerned, then itmay be possible to acquire a hard copy from the sameoffice or any library. A special library need not co1-

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Tabl-e 2: Patent Information/Abstracting Services

(A) Exclusive Patent Abstracts

(i) Official Abstracts:Abridgements (British Patent Office)Official Gazette of the US Patent and Trademark Office- Patents(US~:Abridgements of Indian Patents (India)Resumes In Bull de la Propriete Industrielle (French Patent Off)••• etc.

(ii) Commercial/Non-official Abstracts:

Auszuege aus Auslegesohriften (Wila Verlag fuer Wirtschafts-werbung Wilhelm Lampl, Munich, FRG)

Basic Abstracts Jr (Derwent Publications Ltd., London)Airplane Patent Digest (Manufacturers Aircraft Assn Inc. NY)

etc.

(B) Abstracts which include Patents

Chemical AbstractsScience Abstracts (INSPEC, lEE, England)Referativnyi ZhurnalComputer Abstracts (Technical Information Co., St. Helen, Jersy)DesaI ination Abstracts (Cent of Sc & Tech. Inf., Tel Aviv)••• etc.

lect all the patents. Instead, they should attempt asectoral comprehensiveness in the collection of pa-tents having relevance to the research work done bythe parent organisation. Special libraries need themfor continuous and expeditious use by the research-ers, scientists and technologists. These patents beingusually made up-to-date, by 'amendments' and 're-issues", the special librarian should there fort" keep aconstant watch on such publications and take nece-ssary steps to ensure their procurement automaticallyand quickly.

41 Organisation of Patent literature

While deciding on the different steps in orgamsmgpatent documents in a library, it should be kept inmind that these will generally be sought by the usersfor patentability search, state of art search, infringe-ment search, validity search and index search. Differ-


ent steps are to be co-ordinated in such way so as tocompliment each other in their objective of satisfyingusers' need.

5 STORING/FILING OF PATENTSThis form of document, being one of the essentialreference tools to the professional experts associatedwith research, development and production line needsspecial attention. While deciding the methods ofstoriag/filing in the library's stock together withother f,:mn of documents, the important factors to bekept :,- view are: a) library-users' need, b) the overallnature of the library, c) other form of documentcollection and d) the available techno-economic faci-lities. However, mention may be made of the variousavailable methods of storing/filing patents in a lib-rary. A particular library should think from its ownperspectives before adopting any of these. Some ofthe available methods are:

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1) Keeping the patents mixed with other formof documents like books etc. in the general stock, isthe most conventional way, practiced in most libra-ries having a small collection of patents. Thosefollowing OC for their document classification, mayassign either the number relevant to the subjectcontent or the class number of patent in the techno-logy class to a particular patent. The latter methodwill ultimately result in bringing all the patents inone position on the shelves. UOC's form division,if used, will indicate the form difference of patents. Afurther step may be attempted by distributing thepatents of similar or allied subjects in the stack inpackets, within BOX FILES assigning common classnumber/subject headings.

2) Patents of all countries bear their own PatentOffice Classification code numbers. They are univer-sally referred to and usually known by their codenumbers. Hence, they should most conveniently befiled/kept in numerical sequence under country invertical files/box files/or transfer cases. On the widecover of each box a complete list of specifications orthe first and last numbers or code numbers of thepatents may be pasted on. Patent documents aresometimes kept in two sequences a) domestic andb) foreign. Foreign patents may be filed in separateplaces and arranged alphabetically within the class bycountry of origin. This procedure may successfully bepracticed in libraries having both sizable and smallcollection of patents in their stock. A parallel stockfor patents is thus established.

3) The libraries (e.g. Patent Office, PatentInspection Centre) where patents form the majorpart of their document collections, the presenttrend is to keep them in bunches of 100 successivenumbers, grouped in batches and stored in racks orpamphletboxes.

6 SHELVING

Unlike books, patents have poor physical rigidity.Hence, they need to be kept in specially designedfolders. Each vertical file/folder or box file mustbear the starting and the last serial/code numbers ofthe patents stored therein.

7 INDEXING

Index to all patents in the library stock, referring totheir contents and location is necessary. Apart fromPatent Offices, or organisations similar to them, in alllibraries ,associated with R&D centres of industrialestablishments and institutions conducting researcheson "vendible product", it is always advisable to keep

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the patent documents in a parallel sequence com-pletely segregated from general stock of other con-ventional types of documents. As a complementaryto the shelving system, an indexing system for retriev-ing the information regarding the patents for satisfy-ing various queries should be maintained. Subjectheadings may be had from P.O. Classification schem-es, general library classification or the titles and con-tents of patents. Reference may be made to IndianInstitute of Petroleum which has been engaged indrawing up unique indexing scheme exclusively forpatents. Approaches like, name of patentee, title,patent no. etc. should be satisfied by the index.

8 NOTES

In case all the patents are kept in a broken sequence,the users must be guided from a prominent place(i.e. catalogue, circulation counter, etc.) to theirphysical location in the library. Information aboutthe available patents may be disseminated to theusers through abstracts issued by the patent offices,and abstracting journals (see Table 2).

The difficulties in retrieving technical informa-tion in patents anse from the patents' legal jargon,juristic phraseology, language barrier etc. A patentdocument at times includes only the minimum speci-fic information of the patented technology. It maynot provide the general information without whichone cannot make ready use of the patented techno-logy.

Indian patents are assigned serial numbers assoon as they are filed, and the final patents carrythe same serial numbers. Since a number of themare not finally accepted, and declared void, thereare usually many gaps in the serial numbers of thepatents sealed. This creates a problem to the acqui-sition librarian, since an expeditious scrutiny hasto be made before ordering a patent. In USA andsome other countries, this problem does not arise.

91 Suggestions1. The patents, at least those which are con-

nected with the rural technology should be translatedin the local languages. The respective State Govern-ments are expected to take initiative in this matter.The State Library System through its "Package ofinformation" should have provisions to make therelevant patents available to the rural areas.

2. For patent information, a national informa-tion system having stock of both domestic andforeign patents is to be created and it should take fullresponsibility for the effective exploitation of this

Ann Lib Sci Doc


vast source of technological information with thehelp of other similar organisations. The nationalPatent Office library should preferably be entrustedwith this responsibility which will include the provi-sion of reprographic, translation, indexing and abs-tracting services of the patents in co-ordination withthe other institutions at the national level.

3. The schools of library and information scien-ce should train their students in the better handlingof this form of documents so that they may providebest form of information when needed.

4. Courses on patent information both atnational and international level should be organised.Programmes of these courses should be worked out"so as to ensure theoretical background and practicalskills for the office workers and specialists ... whosepresent or future jobs are connected with patentinformation or many-sided examination of inven-tions". (4)

92 Concluding Notes

We are happy to know that "the Ministry of Industryand Civil Supplies has approved a scheme for settingup a sectoral centre for Patent Information which willbe integrated, with the NISSAT sectoral system".(l)."A detailed plan has been prepared for the establish-ment of a Patent library & Information Centre whichwill not only serve as a depository for Indian andforeign patents but also undertake ratent literaturesearch and information service". (2 "It is to behoped that the proposed Patent Information Systemat Nagpur which will include Indian and internationalpatent literature will achieve much in this coun-try". (3)

A recent study(5) on the use of patent in indus-try conducted by New Castle-upon-Tyne Polytechnicrevealed the general ignorance of any other functionof patent than its protective role. Even the patenteesmake no use of the information freely available inthe rival firm's patents. They design their products


independently and finally conduct patent search as ameasure against possible infringement. Some research-ers are of opinion to include 97% of the printedprimary literature (including patent) in the CurrentAwareness Service only.

REFERENCES CITED

(1) Kamath, V.A. Role of information systems innational development. In Science and techno-logy in India ed by Vadilal Dagli, S. Chand.1982. P 276-9l.

(2) ibid.

(3) Rayninger, Haripriya. Patents as an early sourceof S&T information. Hindu. December 9, 1981.

(4) Moscow course of patent information. YouthReview. 18(6),1982. P5.

(5) Reading into a reluctance towards patents.New Scientist. June 4,1981. P.625.

FURTHER READINGS

1. Dodd, V S. Development in patent documents.Aslib Proc. 31(4),1979. P 180-190.

2. Gupta, S K. Patent literature in special librariesand information centres. IASLIC BULL. 25(1),1980.·P 45-48.

3. Novjot Kaur, Role of patent information in thetransfer of technology and promotion of domes-tic technology in India. In IASLIC special publi-cation no.20. 1980. P 97-104.

4. Krishnan, A. Patent as a source of information.Ann Lib Sci Doc. 27(1-4») 1980. P 78-89.

5. Kumar, D & Garudadwajan, B. Patent informa-tion system: a procedure adopted by lIP.IASLIC BULL. 25(2),1980. P 73-86.

6. Pai, R B. Patents for inventions. New Delhi,/CSIR. 1956.

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Appendix -Patent AS80ciated ~gani$ation8 & thei~ Services

Abbrvn+ Ful I Name

NRDC: National ResearchDevelopment Corpo-ration (New Delhi)

INSP[C: InformationServices for thePhysics & Enginee-ring Communities(lEE, Hitchson,Herts,England)

JAPATIC: Japan PatentInformation Centre1971

WIPO: World IntellectualProperty Organisa-t ion. (Geneva)1967.

ICIREPAT: Internation~1Co-operation inInformation Retrie-val among PatentExamining Offices.(Geneva) 1962

INPADOC: InternationalPatent Documenta-tion Centre.(Vienna). 1972.

Activitles/Opj ect ives

licensing & Commercialexploitation of patentsarising from NationalLaboratories and PublicSector R&D Centres.

Help patent searchingauthorities with mostsought non-patentliterature

Protecting intellectualproperty throughoutWorld, Development ofIPC, World Patent Bib-liographic Data Bank,Co-operative PatentSearch.

Standardize patents,develop computerisedpatent searching system

ServicesOffered

Paten t-Know- How,training, help i~importing equipment& raw materials.

Full text copy service,photocopy of article &information sheet withEngl ish Abstract fornon-Engl ish articles.

Informa~ion file entitled Publications:IPADOC data base covering i)~O% world patent.Largestup-to-date co~l~ction of ii)16 mm microfilm copies ofpatents. n n

iv)

International Pate-nt GazettePatent Family SerwvicePatent Classifica~tion ServicePatent ApplicationServiceNumerical DataBase

v)

vi)and

Supply of copiesof patent inmicrofiche.

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organization ofpatented information

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