OSTIblog Articles in the dissertations Topic

Forms of STI - pt. 3

In the first two parts to this post (Forms of STI and Forms of STI - pt. 2), I talked about how there are different forms of scientific and technical information and each is published and disseminated in its own way.  OSTI has different search tools to access the different types of STI.  I also discussed technical reports, journal literature, conference proceedings and papers, and e-prints.  After defining each of these types of STI, I described the OSTI products that searches each.  This post will finish the discussion by covering patents, project summaries, and theses/dissertations.

Patents

 Patents allow the spread of information about technological inventions while protecting the property rights of the inventor.  A patent issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office excludes others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the U.S. or importing the invention into the U.S. for a limited time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention when the patent is granted.  This public disclosure is extremely important in furthering scientific research.  Technology moves on, but information remains useful forever

Thomas Jefferson, an inventor himself and appointed by George Washington to the first Patent Board, was, essentially, the first patent examiner.  He found that "the issue of patents for new discoveries has given a spring to invention beyond my conception." (As a graduate of the University of Virginia, I always like to work in a Jefferson quote in my writings.)

DOE and its predecessor agencies, ERDA and AEC, are responsible for creating a tremendous amount of new technology....

Related Topics: dissertations, DOE Research & Development (R&D) Accomplishments, DOE Research and Development (R&D) Project Summaries, E-Print Network (EPN), Energy Citations Database (ECD), Energy Files, Federal R&D Project Summaries, Information Bridge (IB), osti, patents, project summaries, sti, theses