For more than 25 years, a State Standard on Patent Studies (GOST
R 15.011-96) has been acting in Russia. This State Standard has
established unified requirements on the scope of and procedure for
patent studies in Russia, required for implementation by all
business entities.
On 19 September 2022, a new edition of this State Standard,
issued as GOST R 15.011-2022 enters into force, replacing the old
one, mainly due to a need to update a number of old terms,
introduce new concepts, adjust the forms of reporting documents,
and set modern patent studies approaches and methodologies.
One of the strong points of the new Standard is clearly dividing
patent studies into types. In particular, the Standard determines
specific types of patent studies by correlating its conduct with
the development stages and technological life cycle phases. Thus,
prior art patent studies are supposed to be conducted at the
initial R&D stage, at defining the development areas, when
