Access to Knowledge for Patent Offices

Under the Access to Research for Development and Innovation (aRDi) scheme, Patent offices in developing countries will be given greater access to 150 online scientific journals by the end of the year. The scheme was launched in July by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in partnership with major scientific publishers, including Elsevier, Oxford University Press, Springer Science+Business Media, and Taylor & Francis, and linked to one of the key recommendations of the WIPO Development Agenda. Recommendation 8 of Cluster A (Technical Assistance and Capacity Building) of the 45 Adopted Recommendations under the WIPO Development Agenda, calls for WIPO "to develop agreements with research institutions and with private enterprises with a view to facilitating the national offices of developing countries, especially LDCs, as well as their regional and sub-regional intellectual property organizations to access specialized databases for the purposes of patent searches." According to the Science and Development Network, the scheme will facilitate the process of patent examination in developing countries, with 50 least-developed countries being provided with free subscriptions and 57 developing countries offered low-cost subscriptions.