The Reporting Items for Patent Landscapes (RIPL) Statement: a Resource for Stakeholders Involved in Patent Landscaping Exercises

The Reporting Items for Patent Landscapes (RIPL) checklist aims to improve the transparency and completeness of reporting of patent landscapes. It lists items that should minimally be reported in academic papers incorporating patent landscapes. Though it was developed based on evidence from the life sciences and focussed on academic articles, it could also be useful for a broader range of stakeholders. Here, I discuss the need for RIPL, how it may useful be in academia, policy/government and industry and highlight other resources to use with it. Further steps that could be taken to improve reproducibility, including open code and protocol registration, are then highlighted.