The paper emphasises the importance of technical information as a factor in economic development and points out the advantages of patent documents as sources of technological information. It describes the possible uses of information in patent documents and discusses the extent to which patent...

The article describes how the Australian Patent Office constructed search files to fulfi; its responsibilities as a PCT International Searching Authority. Search files are established on an ad hoc basis as the need arises and comprise classified sets of abstracts of patent documents included in...