ISO related web sites page has a good list of international and national standards bodies. If the organisation you are interested in is not listed above try an Internet search. Gateways such as EEVL and EELS can be useful for this type of information or you could try a general search using one of the resources from the Academic Gateway page. Acronyms and abbreviations. Standards are usually referred to by an alphanumeric code which indicates who produced the standard.
Patents are an increasingly important source of information within the academic community.
Knowing what has been patented helps to ensure that you don't duplicate research or find that you cannot do anything with research findings because they have been patented earlier by someone else. A patent is a legal right granted to the applicant, upon fulfillment of certain conditions, which grants them the monopoly on making, using or selling an invention, for a fixed period of time, in the countries in which a patent has been granted. Only original inventions can be patented so the invention must never have been made public anywhere in the world before the date the application for a patent is filed. The invention has to be capable of industrial application and manufacture. If you are considering patenting something yourself you need to do a very thorough search to make sure that no one has invented something similar.