e) Books

In T 842/91 the subject-matter of the claimed invention was included in a book to be published. Shortly before the priority date, the patent proprietor gave permission to the publisher to disclose the contents of the book The board held that although the patent proprietor had clearly given the publisher permission to make the claimed subject-matter available to the public, this could not of itself amount to actually making it available.

In T 267/03 it was ruled that binoculars depicted photographically in a book on binoculars, with the manufacturer's name and an approximate date of manufacture ("ca. 1960") far earlier than the date of filing of the patent in suit, constituted prior art for that patent in respect of the binoculars' internal structure.

In T 915/12 the board considered that there was not sufficient evidence to prove that D16 – an extract from an encyclopedia – was made available to the public before the priority date (5 February 2001). The printing (2000) and copyright (1999) years indicated in D16 could not alone prove accessibility before early 2001. The handwritten annotation made by the head of Collections Department University on the cover page did not fulfil the requirements of form and content for affidavits. See T 1950/16 on dating documents using an ISBN number in conjunction with a copyright notice.