An Introduction to the Patstat Database with Example Queries

This paper provides an introduction to the Patstat patent database. It offers guided examples of ten popular queries that are relevant for research purposes and that cover the most important data tables. It is targeted at academic researchers and practitioners willing to learn the basics of the database.Comment: To appear in the Australian Economic Revie

Policy-makers and the R&D-patent relationship. Bruegel Policy Contribution/May 2008

This policy contribution summarises a communication entitled “A policy insight into the R&D-patent relationship” presented at Industry Canada in their Distinguished Speakers in Economics Series, Ottawa, Canada, 18 April, 2008. It argues that the number of priority filings should be used as a patent-based measure of Europe’s innovation performance. It also identifies several policies that may affect the R&D-patent relationship. Patent-based indicators at the country level are frequently used to assess countries’ innovation performance or effort. Yet they are often said to reflect the propensity to patent rather than actual research productivity. We argue that patent-based indicators can rightly be used to measure research productivity, as witnessed by the influence of several policy tools on the R&D-patent relationship. We also put forward a new counting methodology, less subject to ‘home bias’

An assessment of how well we account for intangibles

Estimates of intangible capital stock are of prime importance for accurate measurement of productivity growth. Aggregate intangible capital stock is usually estimated using the so-called Corrado-Hulten-Sichel (CHS) new growth accounting framework. Yet this framework has not received much academic scrutiny to-date. This article proposes a validity test of two intangible investment series in the CHS framework, namely "brand equity" and "architectural and engineering designs." The test involves assessing the extent to which these intangible investment series explain the demand for trademarks and design rights. The econometric analysis is performed on an unbalanced panel of 32 countries from 1980 to 2010. The results suggest that brand equity investment is a powerful predictor of trademark applications. However, investment in design activity is not correlated with the count of design rights, which I take as evidence that current methodologies do not account well for design activities

Do Firms Face a Trade-Off between the Quantity and the Quality of Their Inventions?

G5 - Minor Reports and Working Paper

Imputation of missing information in worldwide patent data

We present a general method for imputing missing information in the Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT) and make the resulting datasets publicly available. The PATSTAT database is the de facto standard for academic research using patent data. Complete information on patents is essential to obtain an accurate picture of technological activities across countries and over time. However, the coverage of the database is far from complete. Our data imputation method exploits detailed institutional knowledge about the international patent system, and we codify it in a SQL algorithm. We provide two datasets related to the imputation of missing country codes and missing technology classification. We also release the algorithm that can be easily adapted to impute other pieces of information that are missing in PATSTAT. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc

Decentralising the patent system

Modern patent systems are slow, inefficient, expensive, and may result in outcomes that actively harm technological progress. This paper proposes a substantive re-think of these systems and lays a foundation upon which practical solutions can be built. Many solutions proposed in the past, such as prior-art bounties, outsourced examination, and dynamic fee setting, have gone unheeded due to the cost of administering them and the rigidity of the patent system. We explore how distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) enable these major changes by altering the way stakeholders are able to interact with the patent records system. We find that transitioning to a DLT-based patent records system can enable many previously suggested improvements to current patent systems in a flexible, scalable, and transparent manner. The case for such a transition is strengthened when jointly considering the complex but common roots of problems facing modern patent systems, rather than a balkanised set of technical solutions to address each issue independently. Noting that a DLT-based system is not a panacea, we also provide comment on the political, legal, and organisational challenges that must be overcome for such changes to be implemented at scale

Sources of knowledge flow between developed and developing nations

This article provides a long-term view on the sources of knowledge flow between developed and developing nations. It relies on patent data to explore three potential sources: R&D collaboration, technology sourcing, and technology transfer. All three sources provide a very consistent message. First, knowledge flows from East Asia, particularly China, are occurring more frequently. Second, knowledge flows are increasingly concentrated in information and communication technologies. Third, the USA and Canada had traditionally larger patenting activity with Asia than Europe, but the share of activity between Europe and Asia has been increasing in recent years. Larger patenting activity between the USA and Canada and Asia implies that North America is more likely to benefit from the reverse knowledge flows than Europe as China progresses toward becoming a technological leader

Are Patent Fees Effective at Weeding out Low quality Patents?

The paper investigates whether patent fees are an effective mechanism to deter the filing of low-quality patent applications. The study analyzes the effect of the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1982, which resulted in a substantial increase in patenting fees at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, on patent quality. Results from a series of difference-in-differences regressions suggest that the increase in fees led to a weeding out of low-quality patents. About 16–17 per cent of patents in the lowest quality decile were filtered out. The figure reaches 24–30 per cent for patents in the lowest quality quintile. However, the fee elasticity of quality decreased with the size of the patent portfolio held by applicants. The study has strong policy implications in the current context of concerns about declines in patent quality and the financial vulnerability of patent offices

Getting Started with PATSTAT Register

This article provides a technical introduction to the PATSTAT Register database, which contains bibliographical, procedural and legal status data on patent applications handled by the European Patent Office. It presents eight MySQL queries that cover some of the most relevant aspects of the database for research purposes. It targets academic researchers and practitioners who are familiar with the PATSTAT database and the MySQL language

Geocoding of worldwide patent data

The dataset provides geographic coordinates for inventor and applicant locations in 18.8 million patent documents spanning over more than 30 years. The geocoded data are further allocated to the corresponding countries, regions and cities. When the address information was missing in the original patent document, we imputed it by using information from subsequent filings in the patent family. The resulting database can be used to study patenting activity at a fine-grained geographic level without creating bias towards the traditional, established patent offices