icic 2016: patent information - looking beyond china

“Beyond China” -Who are the rising stars

in patent information?

Stephen Adams

Magister Ltd., GB

ICIC 2016, Heidelberg

Background

• Many information professionals still rely upon

commercial family databases for a proportion of

their patent-based searches

– FTO searches may be run in single-country

collections;

– patentability searches are usually more efficient in a

database with wider country coverage (+/- value

added indexing)

• Commercial database producers are under

pressure to select the right mix of countries in

their products.

© Magister Ltd, 2016 2


“Re-active coverage”

• Historically, expansion of coverage in multi-

national databases has concentrated upon

including

– mature or growing industrialised economies (G8+)

– newly-identified, high-volume contributors to the

state of the art (CN)

– user demand (cf. MX vs. DE-U)

• There is no foolproof way of predicting where

the next avalanche of prior art will come

from…but…there may be useful clues.

An approach towards “pro-active”

expansion of database coverage


II. Political,

economic,

financial factors

I. Pragmatic

issues of data

collection

III. Statistical

measures of the IP

system


coverage (I)


Does the potential new country have the capacity to

produce a reliable electronic data feed of patent

information?

Back-file digitisation?

IT infrastructure for front-file origination?

Pragmatic issues

of data collection


coverage (II)


Political,

economic,

financial factors

Where do potential new

countries stand on the WIPO

Global Innovation Index?

Is the innovation score rising,

falling, or static?

If rising, what is the rate of

rise?

Is the patent system important

in this country?

WIPO’s Global Innovation Index


Annual publication since 2007; ranking 120-140

countries on a wide range of parameters measuring the

environment for innovation, including operation of

their IP system.

Back issues from:

www.wipo.int/publications/en/series/index.jsp?id=129

More details from: www.globalinnovationindex.org

Global Innovation Index

• Each issue ranks the surveyed countries using an

aggregate score:

– Switzerland has ranked no.1 for the last 6 years

– Bottom ranked countries include Sudan, Yemen,

Myanmar, Syria…

• A ‘rising star’ could be a country which shows a

sustained rise up the rankings, year on year.

• Data from 2011-2016 were analysed

– rankings from this period plotted, fitted to a

regression line, scored as the ‘inverse value of the

slope’ as a indication of consistent rise or fall.


Cumulating GII data – example for

Canada


GII

ranking

2011 8

2012 12

2013 11

2014 12

2015 16

2016 15

Slope of regression line fitting score data = + 1.37

An increase in overall rank number over time represents

a deterioration in performance; the inverse value (-1.37)

is used as an index of sustained performance.

Cumulating GII data – example for

Kazakhstan


GII

ranking

2011 84

2012 83

2013 84

2014 79

2015 82

2016 75

Slope of regression line fitting score data = – 1.51

A decrease in overall rank number over time represents an

improvement in performance; the inverse value (+ 1.51) is

used as an index of sustained performance.

Top 15 consistent improvers,

2011-2016


Performance in the top 1/3 of the table

(ranked higher than 50 in at least one year)

• Some of the overall good performers are starting

from a very low base; they may not make an

impact for some while.

• All of the following are ‘mid-range’ countries:


Summary so far

• The GII data can help us to identify a small

number of countries which

– have a generally positive environment for innovation,

including an established IP system, and

– have shown consistent improvements in their ranking

over the last 6-8 years.

• Of these candidates, a number currently have

little or no content in family databases:

– Panama, Morocco, Mongolia (rapid risers)

– Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Mauritius, Costa Rica

(slowly rising from middle to top range)



coverage (III)


Statistical

measures of the IP

system

Grant statistics (% national, % non-national)

Volume of activity (absolute numbers; applications/1m population)

“Originality” (% new basics)

What is the state of the national IP

publication system?

Is past performance a clue to the

future?


What do (might) the numbers tell us?

• Legal viewpoint: an “active” IPR regime might be expected to exhibit

– a rising level (absolute numbers) of grants to national applicants

• implies that IP system is attractive to local industry

– a significant proportion of grants to non-national applicants

• implies that multi-national inventors have sufficient confidence to obtain IP rights in that country

• Technical viewpoint: is the country becoming a major contributor to the state of the art?

– a significant proportion of the published unexamined applications should be new basics, not equivalents.


Selecting and processing the data

• The WIPO IP Statistics Data Center (http://www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/) collates data on

– origin of applications

– grants to national and non-national applicants.

• Processing method

– Select data from countries which either

• averaged at least 500 patents/year granted to nationals over 2011-

2014 and/or,

• averaged at least 5,000 patents/year granted to all applicants over

2011-2014 (national + non-national).

– Eliminate the IP5, the G8, and any EPO member states.

– Select the next 10 on the grant rankings.


> 500 patents/year to nationals


> 5000 total patents/year


The leading players so far…

13 countries• Americas:

– Mexico

• Africa:

– South Africa

• Europe:

– Belarus, Ukraine

• Middle East, Central/South Asia:

– Kazakhstan, India, Iran, Israel

• Australasia, East Asia:

– Australia, Hong Kong, North Korea, Singapore, Taiwan

But is this a good measure?

• Many countries in the 1990-2010 period

passed utility model (UM) laws

– possibly a local reaction to international

treaty obligations to pass TRIPS-compliant

patent legislation, not meeting the need of

local industry.

• Does the picture change if we consider

total invention-related IP (i.e. patents and

utility models together)?


Incorporating UM into the mix

• Repeat the exercise

• Slightly modified criteria:

– Total grants selected from >1000, not >5000

– Grants to nationals selected from >500

– Retained any individual states which also

belong to a regional patent-granting system

such as the EPO

• smaller applicants may use a local UM system in

preference to a regional patent system



> 500 UM/year to nationals


> 1000 total UM/year


The new leader board…

20 countries• Americas:

– Mexico

• Africa:

– South Africa

• Europe:

– Belarus, Czech Rep. (U), Germany (U), Italy (U), Russian

Fedn. (U), Spain (U), Ukraine


– Kazakhstan, India, Iran, Israel, Turkey (U)


– Australia, Hong Kong, North Korea, Singapore, Taiwan,

Thailand (U)


Focus on those with little/no prior

coverage…• Americas:

– Mexico

• Africa:

– South Africa

• Europe:

– BELARUS, CZECH REP. (U), Germany (U), ITALY (U),

Russian Fedn. (U), Spain (U), UKRAINE


– KAZAKHSTAN, India, IRAN, Israel, Turkey (U)


– Australia, Hong Kong, NORTH KOREA, Singapore, Taiwan,

THAILAND (U)

Potential new content;

average publication rate, 2010-2014Country Patents

(nationals)

Patents

(total)

UMs

(nationals)

UMs

(total)

Grand

total

Ukraine 1787 3658 9626 9796 13454

North Korea 6322 6360 ND ND 6360

Iran 4285 4546 0 0 4546

Italy (U) 3113 3404 3404

Belarus 1291 1408 829 896 2304

Kazakhstan 1465 1689 78 134 1823

Czech Rep. (U) 1400 1458 1458

Thailand (U) 805 842 842

New patents: 17661 New UM: 16530

Grand total of new documents per year: 34191


Mostly missing from current

family databases

Summary and conclusions

• Statistical data may provide a more

objective method, alongside other factors,

to identify ‘rising stars’

• These analyses have only considered the

patent-granting scenario;

– more research on the impact of published

unexamined applications (CC-A documents)

would be helpful

– no comment is possible on the quality of

disclosures (new basics vs. equivalents)


The ones to watch?


Country

code

Flag Country

code

Flag

BY MN

CR MU

IR PA

KP SA

KZ UA

MA VN

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