what can we do with patents statistics?

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WHAT CAN WE DO WITH WHAT CAN WE DO WITH PATENTS STATISTICS?PATENTS STATISTICS?

Dominique Guellec

Senior Economist

OECDOECD

WIPO SPLT Conference – Geneva March 1-3 2006

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Outline of the presentation

Why counting patents? Objectives of the OECD patent work Patent indicators Future developments

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What can we do with patents statistics?

– Using patents as indicators of innovation (along with R&D expenditure, human resources in science and technology, innovation surveys etc.)

– Using statistics for monitoring the patent system and patent policy (strategy of applicants, quality of patents etc.)

Increased interest in patents statistics:

WIPO, EPO, JPO, OECD etc. have made investment.

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OECD work on patents statistics

Aim of the OECD work

- Enriching and standardising patents indicators,

- Making patents databases accessible to all analysts,

- Contributing to policy oriented analysis of the data.

The Patents Statistics Task Force

Gathers since 2001 major actors for exchanging experience and setting up common standards and databases: OECD, EPO, JPO, USPTO, WIPO

+ Users: NSF, EC

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Data bases for patents statistics

– Databases => “usual” databases are designed to retrieve individual patents: They need to be reformatted to serve statistical uses.

– OECD Database = Patents from major offices, PCT, Families

– Patstat - New database from EPO with guidance of the patents statistics task force; data coming from Doc DB (Inpadoc), covers 73 patent offices. First release end of March 2006.

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Patent indicators

Indicators = Counting various categories of patents, counting patents in different ways in order to select certain information

Examples:Measuring national technological performance

(patent families), mapping particular areas (biotech, ICT), mapping the internationalisation of technology.

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Triadic patent families

Defined as patents applied both at the EPO, JPO and USPTO

Little cross country bias Selective

Hence an internationally comparable indicator of technological performance (tested with productivity growth etc.).

Special rules for counting: By priority date (closest to the date of invention), country of residence of inventor.

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Share of countries in triadic patent families*2002

Other countries

7.3%

Japan25.6%

European Union31.5%

United States35.6%

* Patents all applied for at the EPO, USPTO and JPO; 2002: Priority Year.

Source: OECD Patent database, 2006.

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Triadic patent families over industry-financed R&D*

* Gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) financed by industry, million 2000 USD using purchasing power parities, lagged by one year.

Source: OECD Patent database, 2006.

United States

European Union

Japan

0.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

0.20

0.25

1986 88 90 92 94 96 98 2000 2002

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Patents in particular technical fields

Technical fields of specific interest, as they contribute to innovation and economic growth: ICT (information and communication technology), biotechnology.

These categories represent one third of all patent applications, and contributed one half of the total growth in 1992-2002.

Operational definitions of these fields were designed by OECD in consultation with experts (from EPO, JPO, WIPO etc.).

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Trends in ICT-related patents filed at the EPO

Source: OECD Patent database, 2006.

Total

European Union

United States

Japan

0

10 000

20 000

30 000

40 000

1986 88 90 92 94 96 98 2000 2002

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Share of ICT-related patents in total EPO patents

2002

Source: OECD Patent database, 2006.

0

25

50

75%

1991

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Share of Biotechnology patents in total EPO patents 2002

Source: OECD Patent database, 2006.

0.0

2.5

5.0

7.5

10.0%

1991

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Internationalisation of technology

Patents include unique information of the residence (address) on owner(s) and inventor(s).

co-inventions: Two or more inventors located in different countries

Foreign ownership of domestic inventions: The inventor is domestic, the owner resides abroad

Domestic ownership of foreign inventions: The owner is domestic, the inventor resides abroad

All three indicators have raising trends world-wide: Technology is globalising

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Patents with foreign co-inventors*2000-2002

* Share of patent applications to the EPO with at least one foreign co-inventor in total patents invented domestically.

Source: OECD Patent database, 2006.

0

10

20

30

40

50%

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Foreign ownership of domestic inventions* 2000-2002

* Share of patent applications to the EPO owned by foreign residents in total patents invented domestically

Source: OECD Patent database, 2006.

0

10

20

30

40

50%

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Domestic ownership of inventions made abroad* 2000-2002

* Share of patent applications to the EPO invented abroad in total patents owned by country residents.

Source: OECD Patent database, 2006.

0

10

20

30

40%

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OECD Compendium of Patent Statistics

Reports all these indicators and more,

explains the methodology

2005 edition accessible online:

www.oecd.org/sti/ipr-statistics

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Statistics for monitoring patent systems

Patent Offices, authorities in charge of patent policy, users of the patent system, and the public at large want more information on the working of the system and problems it is confronted with.

Two examples (illustrated here by EPO, but apply to other patent offices as well):

Restrictions on the grant of biotech patents triggered a reduction in applications after 2000.

Increased “voluminosity” of patent applications overload patent offices.

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Trends in Biotechnology patents filed at the EPO

Source: OECD Patent database, 2006.

Total

European Union

United States

Japan

0

2 000

4 000

6 000

8 000

1986 88 90 92 94 96 98 2000 2002

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Statistics for monitoring patent systems

Graph 1: Average number of claims per application received, EPO, 1990 - 2004 (by year of application)

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12

14

16

18

20

22

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Filing Year

Ave

rag

e C

laim

s

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THE question: What is the impact of patents on innovation, diffusion of technology and economic growth?

In which circumstances do patents help, when do they play a negative role?

In which ways can the patent system be adapted for improving its effectiveness?

=>Analytical project to be started at OECD: Economic use and impact of patents (licensing, raising capital etc.) => collecting new data and conducting analysis.

Future analytical developments

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Third in a series (first two were in Geneva with WIPO and OECD, in 2003 and 2004)

Co-organised by OECD and EPO, in co-operation with WIPO, JPO, the Task Force and the Austrian Patent Office

Vienna October 23-24 2006

Conference on patents statistics