Abstract

Patents form a significant component of the literature of technology. The intensification of effort on research and development in the aftermath of World War II produced a sharp increase in the number of patents being produced and led to the increased publication of unexamined patent applications, which compounded the growth of this literature. Among the outgrowths of this situation have been a modification of patent documents, especially their front pages, to make them more informative, the introduction of a wide range of new services that provide alerting and retrospective search capabilities for patents, the rapid development of computer storage and searching techniques for patent information, and the rapid development of archival and delivery systems for patent documents themselves. The contributions of many governmental, scientific, and commercial organizations to these developments are surveyed in this article.