The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has published a "Patent Statistics Manual" aiming to provide guiding principles for the use of patent data in science and technological measurement.

According to the OECD, the manual "provides guiding principles for the use of patent data in S&T measurement, and recommendations for the compilation and interpretation of patent indicators in this context. It aims to show what patent statistics can be used for, what they cannot be used for, and how to count patents in order to maximise information on S&T activities while minimising statistical noise and biases".

More information about this publication, its table of contents as well as instructions how to access to the document can be found on the OECD site.