This manual provides guiding principles for the use of patent data in the context of S&T measurement, and recommendations for the compilation and interpretation of patent indicators in this context.

In many jurisdictions, IP rights are only granted after a thorough examination of formal and substantive requirements. The EPO-EPC Guidelines for Examination (available at www.epo.org) detail the practice and procedure to be followed when examining patent applications before the European Patent Office (EPO) in accordance with the European Patent Convention (EPC) and its Implementing Regulations. Our Indexed version improves on the official version by abbreviating entries and grouping the entries at the front to allow quick scanning, using page numbers to speed up getting to the correct page, indicating sections with significant changes in the last 3 years, and modifying the contents to fully use the page size to give better overviews of paragraphs. This book is suitable as a desktop reference for everyday use by attorneys and administrators. IP law is highly complex and continuously changing, so always double check the status with the latest official resources - this version is expected to be legally valid from 1 Mar 2021 to 28 Feb 2022. This book is also suitable for anyone studying European Patent Law and exam candidates. For European Qualifying Exam (EQE) candidates, this is the official version for EQE 2022 Main Exam & Pre-Exam.

The present Guide is a detailed technical paper aimed at industrial property office examiners and users in general to assist them in identifying the correct database and using the possible functionalities and tools offered by specific databases. The current Guide examines a selection of commercial and non-commercial database services considered representative of the broader population of existing services in order to illustrate types and combinations of features available through these services.

This Guide aims to assist users in searching for technology information using patent documents, a rich source of technical, legal and business information presented in a generally standardized format and often not reproduced anywhere else. Though the Guide focuses on patent information, many of the search techniques described here can also be applied in searching other non-patent sources of technology information.

Analysis of the power of multinational corporations in moulding international law on intellectual property rights.