Patent documents are documents that record all kinds of relevant documents produced in the process of patent application, examination and approval. Patent documents in a narrow sense refer to patent application specifications including patent claims, specifications, claims and abstracts, as well as documents and materials of recognized patent specifications.
Patent literature in a broad sense also includes patent bulletins, patent abstracts, various search indexes and reference books. Patent literature is a kind of literature that integrates technical, economic and legal information. Its carrier forms are generally paper, microfilm, magnetic tape, optical disk and so on.
Patent literature is novel, extensive, systematic, detailed, practical, reliable, high-quality, fast publication, unified form, large number of repeated publications, special classification and retrieval methods, strict wording, limitations and general themes. According to the types of patents, patent documents are divided into three categories: invention patent specification, utility model patent specification and design patent document.
According to its legality, patent documents can be divided into two categories: patent application disclosure specification and patent authorization announcement specification. Patent literature retrieval can be carried out in the following ways: patent retrieval, avoiding infringement retrieval, patent status retrieval, technology prediction retrieval and specific technical scheme retrieval.
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1. Patent search of patent application. Before applying for a patent, the applicant should search the relevant patent documents to see whether the invention is novel, creative and practical, so as to avoid not getting a patent right after applying; When requesting substantive examination, the applicant for a patent for invention shall submit relevant reference materials including patent documents to the Patent Office in accordance with the provisions of the Patent Law.
Second, inspire the ideas of invention and creation. There is a saying that stands on the shoulders of giants. Many inventions were developed on the basis of others' inventions, or were inspired and used for reference.
Third, you can learn about the latest developments in this field. As mentioned above, the report of patent documents is 1-3 years earlier than other documents, and there is a process from the birth to the popularization and application of a new technology, with a time lag ranging from several months to decades. Therefore, we can learn about the latest development of science and technology from patent literature.