The patent library: an obituary

David Newton
October 2003

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The demise of the patent library?
A little history...
Patent searching
Document supply
Information source
Archiving
Areas of concern
About the author

The demise of the patent library?

An audible gasp was heard from the audience of patent librarians at the 1998 PatLib conference held in Alicante, Spain when the European Patent Office announced the extent of the new Distributed Internet Patent Service which was later to become known as esp@cenet. The assembled patent librarians could see themselves becoming redundant though patents on the internet. Their fears have generally been realised. In the subsequent years use of patent services on the Internet has grown dramatically (esp@cenet alone had 12,000 individual users in 2002 and over 3 million facsimile pages were being downloaded each week).

A little history...

So, is the patent library is dead? Think, when was the last time that you visited one of these public resources? The public patent Library flourished in the 19th and into the 20th century and was only ousted from its premier position as sole or principal source for the patent searcher when digital and then Internet technology came in towards the end of the 20th century. The public patent library function had been fourfold: to provide an information and search facility; to act as a supplier of documents; to promote the use of patents as a source of technical and commercial information; and to be an archive.

Patent searching

In this first function, libraries were, at one time, the only places where patent searchers could do their job. With the advent of computer searching from the 1970s onwards more and more searching could be done online on databases like Derwent World Patents Index. But even then, for technologies where diagrams and formulae were essential, and where a large number of documents needed to be read, a trip to the patent library was a necessity to complete novelty and other searches. In some search rooms, paper collections in classified sequence enabled the efficient subject searches to be conducted; in others classified abstracts provided this facility.

Document supply

The second function as document supplier has diminished drastically and although some patent libraries once had a big business in supplying documents (over $1m p.a. in a few cases) this has all but gone with the cheap and easy supply of documents from internet data stores held by patent offices and commercial suppliers.

Information source

The third function, that of helping to promote patents as a source of information, many of us in the patent information business would contend, needs to continue. There has to be active promotion of this wonderful source which is largely unknown by those outside the patent search community. Although the Web is a great method of giving this promotion there is a need for a local outlet as well. The Web can reach the great masses but it is local services that can really sell the information to the small business and to others who could benefit. This local provider of patent expertise need not be the patent library and, indeed, if the other patent library activities die away as users and staff reduce it is perhaps essential that this function is carried out by some other local bodies, perhaps those bodies set up to help new businesses. It is difficult to see the sponsors of local patent libraries continuing to support promotional activity without there being a solid base of customers.

Archiving

So as the patent library's information and document supply role disappears and as a result the promotion activity withers, what of the fourth function, the archive role? Certainly, the hugely valuable information resource of patents going back to, in many cases, the 17th century should be preserved for all time. Generally the paper documents, per se, are not valuable but rather it is the information which needs to be preserved. In a few cases the paper documents have historic importance and need careful preservation. For example, the US patent archive contains documents bearing Edison's signature and the UK Public Record Office holds many early patent parchment rolls dating from 1617. In most other cases though, it is the electronic copies that need to be preserved and the paper be disposed of, with the provisos that destruction of paper does not result in loss of information and that digital copies are readily searchable and viewable. It must be a waste of public money to preserve paper where electronic (and other paper) copies are being well preserved elsewhere. As a case in point the British Library, as the UK's national patent archive, is reluctant to dispose of paper copies of US patents despite their universal electronic availability and adequate preservation in the US National Archive. This costs some tens of thousands of dollars each year; money that could be better spent on giving better access to digitised patents.

Areas of concern

Two areas of concern remain: the long-term preservation of electronic information, and access to rarer documents which have not been digitised. Despite the great efforts of the patent offices to digitise older patents some documentation is only held on paper in patent libraries. The demise of the patent library could mean that these rarer documents become less accessible. This problem together with the long-term archiving and universal access to digital documents is something which the patent offices together with the World Intellectual Property Organisation needs to address. Increasingly we rely on fewer and fewer sources to provide us with electronic documents.

And what of the company patent Library? Digitisation of documents and use of in-house databases has enabled research and manufacturing industry to maintain their own patent libraries with input from commercial information providers such as Thomson Derwent, while security issues have prompted them to avoid using public facilities. But the changing needs and transient nature of companies means that public archives are still an essential service to support the patent information needs of industry.

So is the public patent library dead? Is the gasp of alarm at the conference of patent librarians in 1998 the last gasp of patent libraries? Some will reinvent themselves but a look inside your local patent library would indicate that it is moribund. Is an obituary necessary? Certainly they have served us well and their passing should be mourned.

About the author
David Newton was, until recently, Head of Patents Information at the British Library, London, UK. He is now working as a consultant in the patent information business and will become Associate Editor of World Patent Information journal in 2004.