A niche blog dedicated to the issues that arise when supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) extend patents beyond their normal life -- and to the respective positions of patent owners, investors, competitors and consumers. The blog also addresses wider issues that may be of interest or use to those involved in the extension of patent rights. You can email The SPC Blog here

Monday 25 August 2008

Literature on SPCs: a Google search and other things

While looking for literature on SPCs I thought I'd take a look at the Google Scholar facility. Reputedly Google Scholar is much appreciated by students writing their dissertations and theses, since they can supplement their own slender knowledge of a subject with the fruits of patient research of others (hence the Google Scholar motto "Stand on the shoulders of giants").

Keying in the search term "supplementary protection certificate" I received 312 hits. I had not expected a large number but I had certainly thought that there would be more than this, especially since these hits would include writings that deal with the economic and industrial aspects of SPCs as well as the legal. However, it seems that the database of published research on SPCs is primarily legal, since the addition of the search word "law" only reduces the total hits to 252.

Google Scholar offers to search for research papers and articles published in other EU languages too: its lists French, Portuguese, German and Spanish. Be that as it may, the bias is strongly in favour of English-language materials: for example, a search for "Certificat Complementaire de Protection" retrieved only six hits.

The SPC Blog is hoping to build up a bibliography of useful articles, papers and other materials on SPCs, so that anyone working in the subject -- or approaching it for the first time -- will be able to get to grips with it more easily. If any readers have strong recommendations that they would like to share, can they please email me here and let me know.

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