Can patents ever be as popular as papers? | Sponsored | Chemistry World
peter.suber's bookmarks 2018-02-23
Summary:
"The value and usefulness of patents should, in fact, not only demand an increase in their popularity but make them a first-choice source for those seeking chemical information....
A final, unavoidable truth is that research papers aren’t always free. When you try to access a highly relevant paper from a website, you may be greeted by a paywall.
The emergence of open access journals does present the synthetic chemist with a free method of acquiring chemical information. However, in general, medicinal chemists will not deviate from the staple intellectual diet of JACS, JOC, BMCL, Tet. Letts., Tetrahedron, Synthesis and Synlett. These are widely considered to be the best sources of the medicinal and synthetic organic chemistry but these titles are not very supportive of open access. Any serious chemical research entity will have to foot a large annual subscription bill to gain access to them.
In stark contrast, patents are freely available from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)....The most important thing that a research chemist needs to know is that all patents are freely accessible to the public. All 55 million of them. Clearly, this is a data repository that rivals any journal title, especially when the cost to access this wealth of chemical information is zero...."