Cropped WP Emile Losse - Aerial Machine - US Patent 996361 public domain image.
A standards is a publication which states an agreed way of doing something. This ensures consistency and reliability in a product and provides a quality benchmark for anyone not involved in development. Standards are used in Engineering to ensure anything you make or design meets these requirements.
Standards often contain technical specifications and guidelines for manufacture. Many companies and countries have their own standard guidelines while ISO standards are agreed internationally. The British Standards Institution is the national standards body for the United Kingdom. The BSI publishes over 3,100 standards each year, engaging with industry experts, government bodies, trade associations and businesses.
A small collection of British and International standards to support teaching and research.
On the login page select the Institutional tab and look for University of Lincoln to access.
British Standards has implemented Digital Rights Management across its documents (so they will appear to be password protected). You can read online but if you wish to download a copy this means that you need to install the plugin FileOpen to be able to read the documents in Adobe Reader. Our FAQ How to I install FileOpen? should guide you through the steps to install the software.
We don't currently have access to any ASME, ASTM, or US specific standards. In the case of US standards there may be an ISO equivalent.
We have access to a range of standards, including ISO standards through IEEE here.
If you have any questions concerning standards get in touch with your Subject Librarian
A patent is a document granting the sole right for development and manufacture of an idea to the inventor for a set period of time. In the UK patents are granted by the Intellectual Property Office and are only valid in the UK. Once the patent is granted they become publically available. Patents have an expiry date and can be renewed for up to 20 years (UK).
To be patentable an idea must be new, be innovative and ideally have useful application.
Patents are used in Engineering to protect ideas and inventions and to identify any prior art.
Once granted patents are freely available from a number of official sources such as national patent offices or from patent databases (Espacenet, for example)
