Encoding Patent Bibliographic References

Encoding bibliographic data of patent documents

1. Introduction:
This Recommendation provides a guidance for encoding bibliographic data of patent documents in a structured manner according to the TEI  recommendations.

Patent documents are one of the largest public data sources in the world. Over 70 million patent documents have been published to date [1]. They are also a unique source of information: according to the estimations of the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), about two-thirds of the technical information revealed in patents is never published elsewhere [1].

Further, patent documents also have increasing technical and strategic importance - approximately 25% of all scientific or technical publications produced each year originate in patent offices around the world - most of which can be searched as any other kind of literature in databases. During the last 10 years the number of patent filings has been constantly bigger than the published scientific and technical journal articles [1]. This gives a clear indication about the importance of the patent literature as a source of documentation.