Making the most of patent literature

摘要

In theory, the patent literature has always been a valuable source of technical information but in practice, it was difficult to get hold of the actual documents and to grasp their meaning. Nowadays, several websites make it much easier and cheaper to access the patent literature and for USA patents, a powerful search facility is also available free of charge. To take full advantage of this easier access to technical information, a better understanding of why and how patents are structured is required. The present article aims at providing this background information and thereby facilitate the use of information provided by the patent literature.