The International Journal for Industrial Property Documentation, Information, Classification and Statistics

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For General information about submitting your paper see http://www.elsevier.com/locate/guidepublication

Submission of Papers

Submission for all types of manuscripts to World Patent Information normally proceeds by e-mail to the Editor-in-Chief, Michael Blackman, mblackmanwpi@tiscali.co.uk. In the initial e-mail, authors should state that the manuscript, or parts of it, have not been and will not be submitted elsewhere for publication. Authors are requested to include a covering e-mail, manuscript, tables, and figures, as well as any ancillary materials.

All correspondence, including the editor's decision and request for revisions, will be by e-mail to the corresponding author of the paper.

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher. Receipt of manuscripts will be acknowledged and authors should retain a copy of the paper exactly as it was submitted. Since page proofs cannot be sent to authors for last minute corrections, authors must proofread manuscripts carefully, giving special attention to the accuracy of quotations and references. Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to transfer copyright (for more information on copyright see http://www.elsevier.com/authors). This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript. A form facilitating transfer of copyright will be provided. If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: contact ES Global Rights Department, P.O. Box 800, Oxford, OX5 1DX, UK; phone: (+44) 1865 843830, fax: (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail: permissions@elsevier.com

Preparation of text

Submissions must fall within the Aims and Scope of World Patent Information. The following are invited:
• Papers concerned with any aspect of Industrial Property information and documentation or new regulations pertinent to industrial property information and documentation generally of 3000 to 6000 words;
• Brief communications on the above topics of up to 1500 words;
• Short reports on relevant meetings and conferences;
• Book and literature reviews; and
• Letters to the editor commenting on World Patent Information publications or editorial policies and practices.


Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these).

Italics are not to be used for expressions of Latin origin, for example, in vivo, et al., per se. Use decimal points (not commas); use a space for thousands (10 000 and above). Ensure that each new paragraph is clearly indicated. Present tables and figure legends on separate pages at the end of the manuscript. Consult recent sample articles on the journal website to become familiar with layout and conventions. Number all pages consecutively.

Provide the following data on the title page (in the order given).

• Title. Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
• Author names and affiliations. Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name, and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
• Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who is willing to handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address.
• Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.
• Abstract. A concise and factual abstract is required (maximum length 200 words). The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the article, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separate from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. References should therefore be avoided, but if essential, they must be cited in full, without reference to the reference list.
• Keywords. Immediately after the abstract, provide a few keywords avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. Since the abstract and keywords will be used in automatic indexing, the terminology selected should be suitable for computer analysis.

Arrangement of the article

• Subdivision of the article. Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. (the abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to 'the text.' Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.
• Introduction. State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
• Discussion. This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them.
• Conclusions. A short Conclusions section is to be presented and should be divided into specific points.• Appendices. If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc.
• Acknowledgements. Place acknowledgements, including information on grants received, before the references, in a separate section, and not as a footnote on the title page.
• Figure legends, tables, figures, schemes. Present these, in this order, at the end of the article. They are described in more detail below. High-resolution graphics files must always be provided separate from the main text file (see Preparation of illustrations).
• Tables. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.
• References. Responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic citations lies entirely with the authors. Citations in the text. Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications should not be in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Citing and listing of web references. As a minimum, the full Uniform Resource Locator (URL) should be given. Any further information, if known (author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

Text: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to but the reference number(s) must always be given List. Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

References should be given in the form shown in the following examples:

Reference to a journal publication:
[1] Blackman M. US patents in 1856. World Pat Inform 2006;28:251-7.

Reference to a book:
[2] Ganguli P. Gearing up for Patents - The Indian Scenario. Hyderabad: Universities Press, 1998.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
[3] Oppenheim C. Do patent citations count? In: Garfield E, ed. The Web of Knowledge: a Festschrift in honor of Eugene Garfield, ASIS Monograph Series, Medford, NJ: Information Today; 2000: 405-32.

Reference to a report:
[4] Clarke N, Riba M. Patent information for technology foresight. In: Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop, Budapest, 1997.

Note shortened form for last page number, e.g. 251-7, and that for more than 6 authors the first 6 should be listed followed by 'et al'. For further details you are referred to "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals" (J Am Med Assoc 1997;277:927-934) see also http://authors.nejm.org/Misc/NewMs.asp#jstyle and http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/terms_cond.html

Language Editing

Language editing is a responsibility of authors. Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorshome.authors/languagepolishing or contact authorsupport@elsevier.com for more information. Please note Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by outside vendors through our services or in any advertising.

For all third party language editing recommendations, all interaction and responsibility is between the Author and the Language Editor. The language-editing route is also not to be confused with the copy-editing that continues unchanged for our journals during the production after manuscript acceptance.

Electronic format requirements for articles

General points. We accept most wordprocessing formats but Microsoft Word is preferred. An electronic version of the text should be submitted as an email attachment or, if this is not possible, on a CD-ROM. The Editor may refuse to accept discs which cannot be read correctly. Label discs with your name, journal title and software used. Always keep a backup copy of the electronic file.

The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the wordprocessors options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, you may use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts. etc. Do not embed 'graphically designed' equations or tables, but prepare these using the wordprocessor's facility. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces to align columns. Do not import the figures into the text file but, instead, indicate their approximate locations directly in the text. See also the section on Preparation of illustrations. To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spellchecker' function of your wordprocessor.

Preparation of illustrations

• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Save text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font.
• Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files, and supply a separate listing of the files and the software used.
• Provide all illustrations as separate files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.
A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions. You are urged to visit this site; as only excerpts from the detailed information are given here.

Formats

Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalised, please "save as" or convert the images to one of the following formats (Note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below.):

• EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as "graphics".
• TIFF: Colour or greyscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
• TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
• TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (colour or greyscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.
• DOC, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications please supply "as is".

Please do not:• Supply embedded graphics in your word processor (spreadsheet, presentation) document;
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.


Captions

Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately at the end of the text of your article, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Colour illustrations Submit high-quality images. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable colour figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in colour on the web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting colour figures to 'grey scale' (for the printed version should you not opt for colour in print) please submit in addition usable black and white images corresponding to all the colour illustrations.

Preparation of supplementary data

Elsevier now accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please ensure that data is provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

Proofs

When your manuscript is received by the Publisher it is considered to be in its final form. Proofs are not to be regarded as 'drafts'. One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author, to be checked for typesetting/editing. No changes in, or additions to, the accepted (and subsequently edited) manuscript will be allowed at this stage. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. A form with queries from the copyeditor may accompany your proofs. Please answer all queries and make any corrections or additions required. Elsevier will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. In order to do this we need your help. When you receive the (PDF) proof of your article for correction, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Subsequent corrections will not be possible, so please ensure your first sending is complete. Note that this does not mean you have any less time to make your corrections, just that only one set of corrections will be accepted.

Offprints

The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.

Additional paper offprints and copies of the issue can be ordered at a specially reduced rate using the order form sent to the corresponding author after the manuscript has been accepted. Orders for reprints (produced after publication of an article) will incur a 50% surcharge.

Enquiries

Authors can keep a track on the progress of their accepted article, and set up e-mail alerts informing them of changes to their manuscript's status, by using the "Track your accepted article" feature of Elsevier's Authors Home page http://www.elsevier.com/authors. For privacy, information on each article is password-protected. The author should key in the "Our Reference" code (which is in the letter of acknowledgement sent by the publisher on receipt of the accepted article) and the name of the corresponding author. In case of problems or questions, authors may contact the Author Support Department, E-mail: authorsupport@elsevier.com.