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This case study focuses on the antecedents that are linked to individual innovative behaviour as well as the innovative activities mentioned in the innovation surveys that lead to innovation. A literature review was performed in order to determine the most recognised antecedents to innovative behaviour as well as to understand innovative activities of companies, based on innovation surveys, performed by individuals within the company. A survey was developed to collect data from a population of 263 employees, from which hierarchical multiple regression was used to analyse the relationships between the variables. It was determined that the significant antecedents to innovative behaviour of individuals' were: self-efficacy; challenging the status quo and having external work contacts. Similarly, the activities that were determined to lead to innovative behaviour of individuals were: intramural (in-house) RD acquisition of external knowledge and other preparations for product and process innovations. Although the results of this study are only representative of the company that was studied, and hence not generalizable, the results put forward in this case study provide a framework that is useful to other companies that are interested in nurturing innovation.

This article provides details of some significant patent, patentee and invention anniversaries falling in 2006, for example those for improved paper making and sugar production, Brunel, iron and steel manufacture – the Bessemer process, aniline dyes, an improved electric clock, air conditioning, an improved flying machine, and radio navigation for aircraft.

A review of some important, and a few entertaining, inventions for which patents were applied for, published or granted in 1979 (the year that this journal started to be published) is presented. Examples include the personal computer, the drugs Cisplatin, lovastatin and Omeprazole, the dual cyclone vacuum cleaner, voicemail, and genetic engineering. Some anniversaries that fell in 1979 are discussed.

The history of the journal is traced, from its inception in 1979, on a range of key topics, mainly by reference to facts, figures and graphs on the proportion of articles each year, and by listings of the titles of some typical articles. Topics covered are classification, online databases, CD-ROM databases, the Internet and e-filing, intellectual property and industrial property information dissemination, libraries, and patent analysis and statistics. The coverage of trademark and design information retrieval is highlighted, together with legal and policy matters, patent information articles concerning specific technologies disclosed in the patents, and the geographical distribution of articles, authors and subscribers. The editors and publishers, and the main authors and their output, are also covered.

Presented here are the results of some ‘topical’ research for the year 2002––a selection of the patent specifications numbered 2002. It provides a snapshot of the technologies, the inventors and the illustrations of their inventions, from around the world and spanning more than 200 years, from 1794 to 2002. The value of both traditional, paper-based collections and current Internet-based resources in this context is underlined. Over 60 specifications, from some 30 countries and organizations are covered including US, GB, DE, RU, CH, PL, GR, OA, EP, WO, BR, JP, CN, SK and LT.

This article explores the value of patent information as a crucial factor in the assessment of government awards in the UK to technically innovative small firms. The Smart scheme provides a substantial boost to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Some of this help is financial, but they also get help in other ways, for example through the publicity and marketing opportunities the winning of an award creates. Also in many cases, they get the benefit of the patent search that the UK Patent Office carries out as a crucial part of the assessment of most applications. The awards can be used in a variety of ways to enhance the chances of a business getting their project completed and the corresponding product successfully launched into the marketplace. This embraces, inter alia, many of the costs of seeking protection for, and enforcement of, their intellectual property rights (IPR).

As part of a presentation on ‘Locating new ideas in the technology marketplace using patent information’, an example was provided which linked in with the theme of the conference. It relates to the exciting new field of chemistry opened up by the discovery of a further form of carbon, the football-like fullerenes, consisting of many linked carbon atoms, typically 60 or 70. Some statistical information is followed by examples of the patent holdings of the inventors Fuller and Edison.

This article is based on a lecture delivered at the International Chemical Information Conference at Annecy, France in October 1994. It complemented lectures provided by the European Patent Office (EPO) in recent years at this conference.(1) The changes that have taken place regionally and nationally over the last 15 years in the wake of the establishment of the EPO are outlined, such as the reduced input to national offices and their increased role as information providers of both patent and trade mark information. As an example of these changes, the effects on the UK Patent Office (UKPO) and the range of services now provided are described in some detail. Extracts from the UKPO's awareness campaign on intellectual property and patent information are provided. Patent information and search services provided by other organisations in the United Kingdom are also described.

An historical survey of one specific technical field, as illustrated in patent disclosures, is presented. The field is umbrellas, parasols and walking sticks, from the first British patent of 1780 up to the present day, using classified abridgements in bound volumes of hard copy until the mid 1970s and online databases thereafter. More detailed analyses of the last 20 years are provided. Unlike many recent rapidly developing fields, this field has changed relatively little over two centuries; annual inputs are comparable since the middle 1800s, while many similar solutions to recurrent problems resurface periodically. Nevertheless, discernible commercially and technically significant improvements occur throughout this period, as well as many short-lived tangential developments. Some reasons for this pattern are suggested.