Chapter 15
Technical information
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Introduction
15.1.
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There is a vast amount of information about technology. Patents contain an important part of this information. Other sources of technical information are journals and books. Technical information is not restricted to the written form; it can be divulged at seminars and through analysis of the technology itself.
15.2.
There are about 25 million published patents. Each year another million patents (which relate to about 350,000 inventions) are published world-wide. In addition, thousands of journals of a technical nature are published annually.
15.3.
To cope with the task of storing, searching and disseminating the technical information contained in patents (patent information) a system of classification has been set up by the Strasbourg Agreement concerning the International Patent Classification (IPC) which divides technology into eight main sections. The Strasbourg Agreement is considered in Chapter 14. There are about 64,000 final subdivisions in the IPC. The European Patent Office (EPO) has developed its own classification system, based on the IPC, which has over 100,000 final subdivisions.
Storage of technical information
15.4.
Traditionally, patents have been lodged, stored, searched and disseminated as printed paper documents. Although the Japanese Patent Office is attempting to move towards paperless systems, patents are still lodged in paper form. Increasingly other forms (or 'media") are used for storage, search and dissemination.
15.5.
The use of paper documents poses various problems. Relative to the amount of information stored, paper is a bulky and heavy medium, so storage of paper documents takes a large amount of space and the physical structures used to store them must be sturdy. Searching paper documentation is inconvenient, even where the documents are well sorted. Disseminating information on paper is expensive and slow, even when sent by airmail.
15.6.
In the last few decades technologies have been developed which allow information to be stored on smaller media. Examples are the microfilm and microfiche technologies which allow a paper document to be photo-reduced onto photographic film, and re-printed in full size. These media do much to reduce the problem associated with storage of information, and reduce the cost of dissemination, but do little to facilitate search and speed of dissemination.
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