Investment climate; innovation international comparison 1990-2008

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Description topics

Patent applications

A patent is an instrument to protect the knowledge acquired for an
innovation legally. A patent application means that research & development
activities resulted in knowledge that may lead to a new product or
process.

Patent applications to the EPO

Patent applications to the European Patent Office (EPO). An application
is counted when it is submitted at national level. The patent
applications included are applications under the European Patent
Convention, and under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) with EPO as
overseer (Euro PCT). Not counted are applications at the national level
only. When an application was made by several inventors in various
countries, a portion is counted in each of the countries.
Patents are only granted if they are new, an innovative leap forward, and
applicable in industry.
Not considered innovations are new mathematical models, software
improvements, and plant improvements.
The figures of Eurostat have been adjusted to obtain the desired figures
for all years in relation to the size of the working population.
Also calculated are the EU-15, EU-25, EU-27 and OECD averages.
N.B. It can take several years before a patent application is approved.
Therefore figures for the most recent years can rise significantly.
Sources: Eurostat. Additional data on the size of the working population
in non-EU countries from OECD Main Science and Technology Indicators,
2008-2.

High-tech patent applications to the EPO

High-tech patents are defined according to the criteria of the Trilateral
Statistical Report. The following technology areas are considered
high-tech: computers and other automated office equipment, micro-organic
and genetic technology, aviation, communication technology, semiconductors
and lasers (IPC classification).
Source: Eurostat.

High-tech patent applications to the EPO

High-tech patents are defined according to the criteria of the Trilateral
Statistical Report. The following technology areas are considered
high-tech: computers and other automated office equipment, micro-organic
and genetic technology, aviation, communication technology, semiconductors
and lasers (IPC classification).
Source: Eurostat. Additional data on the size of the working population
from OECD Main Science and Technology Indicators, 2008-2.

Triadic patent applications

Triadic patents include patent applications submitted at the same time at
European (EPO) and Japanese (JPO) patent offices and are granted by the
American USPTO. It concerns data about the year of first international
application and is measured on 1 January of each year. Patents are counted
by the inventor's country of origin, not the applicant's.
The number of years between the application of a patent and the approval
varies between the institutions. At the EPO and the JPO it can take up to
4 years, at the USPTO it can take 6 to 10 years. In the OECD publication
Main Science Technology Indicators 2007-2 it is assumed that data on
triadic patents up to 2000 are more or less complete. From 1998 the data
on triadic patents are estimates. The time series are revised in the
publication: figures on the investment climate in the Netherlands 2008,
because the method of estimating has been changed. The estimates are now
computed from the number of biadic patents (EPO and JPO) and from only
the number of patent applications to the EPO in the last couple of years.
Sources: OECD, patent database; OECD, Main Science and Technology
indicators 2008-2.