USING PATENTS AND FREELY AVAILABLE PATENT DATABASES FOR COMMERCIAL ADVANTAGE

摘要

Over the past 20 years there has been a steady increase in patent filings for water technologies across a variety of water industry sectors, and this is projected to increase. Furthermore, over the last 10 years in particular there has been an enormous increase in the amount of patent information that has become freely available over the internet. As discussed in detail in this paper, such information is readily searchable free of charge using a range of databases, and this information can be used for commercial advantage.