American Chemical Society
Teaching Chemical Information:
Tips and Techniques
— March 1996 —
Teaching About Patents
Why teach?
- Important part of the literature of applied chemistry
- Major source of new technological information; often overlooked or removed from search strategy
- Particularly important for students heading for industrial careers
- Student interest high in patenting process
Teaching points:
- Patent is a legal document
- What is patentable
- Most patents of interest to chemists cover composition of matter or processes
- Structure of a patent
- A few sample patents marked up by instructor are informative. Contrast between very detailed patent and very brief one is interesting; as is contrast between one with many claims vs. only one or two.
- Claims are what is covered by patent
- Examples usually contain the new chemical information
- How to obtain patents — full text data bases now available
Teaching Tools Available
- Lesson 9 in Dialog’s Online Searching Curriculum for Chemistry, by Ron Cooke.
- “How to Read a Patent”, John T. Maynard, ChemTech, v.8, no.2, Feb. 1978, p. 91–95.
- For a more detailed description, see: Maynard, John T. and Peters, Howard, M. Understanding Chemical Patents 2nd ed. Washington, D.C., American Chemical Society, 1991.
- Bjork, C. Kenneth. Introduction to Patents. Washington D.C., American Chemical Society, 1991.
- 2 sound cassettes and manual.
- Wiggins. Chemical Information Sources, Chapter 6, Patents, p.101-113.