Patent literature, as its name implies, is the carrier for recording patent contents, including not only paper printed matter, but also information carriers made by optical, electrical and photographic methods.
The types of patent documents can be summarized into the following two types according to the types of documents:
1, patent documents, i.e. patent specification, claims, etc. It is an original document based on the inventor's invention and creation process and achievements. Patent specification and patent claims are the core parts of patent documents, which give a clear and complete explanation of inventions and creations. What most scientific and technical personnel usually refer to as patent document retrieval mainly refers to the retrieval of patent specifications and patent claims.
2. Second-level patent documents, that is, the scattered first-level patent documents are processed, sorted, simplified and edited according to certain principles. There are mainly patent bulletin, patent abstract, patent title, patent classification table, patent classification index and annual cumulative index.