Non-Patent literature as a source of prior
art1
An obvious source of information for scientists - but a
fragmented one
In the world of patent information, one refers to non-patent
literature for all classic scientific, technical and medical publications. This
is usually the type of information researchers are most used to. However,
accessing even very well-known sources remains a daunting task because they are
so fragmented.
A major source of information for certain technical fields
Non-patent literature is a major source of prior art for fields
where publications about new developments first take place in scientific
publications and conferences. This is usually the case for university research
or research conducted by scientists who are inclined to publish their results
in classic scientific publications or at conferences without necessarily
considering patent protection.
The top three fields where NPL plays a major role are computer
science, medicine and biotechnology. In other words, you cannot ignore
non-patent information when conducting a prior art search in these domains.
It is wise to always consider NPL in a prior art search, but for
traditional domains one will usually find the most relevant prior art
information in patent documents. Car clutches, agricultural machines and baby
diapers are examples of domains where all relevant art is usually fully
available in patents. Nonetheless, even in traditional fields, it is wise not
to rule out searches in NPL or on the Internet, as shown in the esp@cenet® quiz
solution for this issue.
Free sources on the Internet
If you want to access non-patent information on the Internet free of
charge, it is worth considering the following major sources:
Google Scholar
scholar.google.com: the famous Google product covering
academic publications. Even if its coverage remains patchy, it is a major tool
to search for relevant NPL.
Scirus
www.scirus.com from Elsevier: this free search engine
is a competitor of Google Scholar that offers different coverage and is in some
ways better documented. It comes from the world-leading scientific publisher
Elsevier and fully covers all Elsevier publications.
Medline
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov: this database, managed by the US
National Institute of Health, is an excellent source of information for those
working in the medical and biomedical fields.
Further reading
A comparison between Scirus and Google Scholar.
www.infotoday.com
An OECD report on scientific publishing and its economics.
www.oecd.org
A Blog relating to Open Access: a new phenomenon in the scientific
publishing world.
www.earlham.edu
1.
This section is aimed at providing our target users with a small
web module to enhance their IP knowledge. It targets researchers or persons who
need basic IP knowledge at work.
Each module will tackle a specific subject using material and
examples available from the Web. («)
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