Patents information

Questions about patents
What patents are, and why they are useful are explained briefly.

Obtaining copies of patents
Contact details are given for obtaining copies of patents from the British Library or The UK Patent Office, including costs.

Known friction stir welding patents and patent applications
TWI collects information on patent and patent applications that involve friction stir welding. A MS-Excel 97 file containing the latest report from the database is available for download.

Links to WWW sites on patents
An annotated list of links to websites with information on patents, including a number of patent issuing bodies and patent databases.