Trends in patent renewals at the United States patent and trademark office

In many countries, the owner of a patent is required to make periodic renewal fee payments in order to maintain legal entitlement to the patented technology. Failure to make a renewal fee payment can result in the expiration of the patent prior to its statutory term. This paper presents the results of an analysis of renewal fee payments on patents issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) since 1982. Results show higher rates of renewal are associated with patents that have corporate owners, are of Japanese origin, and emphasize chemical and electrical classes of technology. A decline in renewal activity since 1990 is evident across most categories of patent ownership and country of patent origin.     

An in-depth empirical analysis of patent citation counts using zero-inflated count data model: The case of KIST

Patent citation counts represent an aspect of patent quality and knowledge flow. Especially, citation data of US patents contain most valuable pieces of the information among other patents. This paper identifies the factors affecting patent citation counts using US patents belonging to Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). For patent citation count model, zero-inflated models are announced to handle the excess zero data. For explanatory factors, research team characteristics, invention-specific characteristics, and geographical domain related characteristics are suggested. As results, the size of invention and the degree of dependence upon Japanese technological domain significantly affect patent citation counts of KIST.     

Patenting and licensing by Spanish firms: Available survey evidence

This paper presents the results of the OEPM (Spanish Patent and Trademark Office)/OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) survey on the economic and financial uses of patents carried out in 2008 among Spanish business applicants of OEPM patents. It also summarizes evidence from previous surveys. All available information indicates that only a few Spanish firms holding patents license them out. Results from the OEPM/OECD survey also reveal that obtaining public support is the first financial use of patents for Spanish firms. Responses to the same OECD questionnaire by EPO patent applicants from several European countries are quite different: licensing out is an extended practice among EPO patent holders from different countries, including Spain, and convincing venture capitalists and private investors are their two most important financial uses of patents. In our view this suggests that there are significant differences across European countries as regards the development of national technology markets and results from international surveys are driven by responses from the largest and more developed countries. The drivers and actors in markets for patents that only protect inventions nationally may be quite distinct from those in markets for patents that protect inventions regionally, such as EPO patents within Europe.     

Progress report on the establishment of a Patent Information Centre (informationszentrum patente) in the Federal Republic of Germany

The author describes the structure of the sectorial information centre for patent information (IZ 17) which is being established in the Federal Republic of Germany as central information service under the responsibility of the German Patent Office. The local patent information services will be incorporated in the system. Details are further given on the work of the user's working party 17, which since April 1980 has taken part in the planning of the information centre by the German Patent Office.     

Japanese submarine patents: examined patents within a year of filing!

Changes to the criteria for accelerated examination in the Japanese Patent Office have resulted in some examined applications never appearing as A documents, being first published as B1 documents, often very quickly. The article explores the implications of this change for all involved in searching and using Japanese patent information. For example, coverage of these patents is very sparse outside of Japanese-language commercial patent databases. In addition, they are granted almost exclusively to Japanese applicants. They are concentrated in electronics and telecommunications. Numbers at present are about 7000 annually.     

Automated search databases at the U.S. patent and trademark office

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has completed the initial installation of an automated search system to enable patent examiners to search the full text of U.S. patents issued since 1975. This represents a first step in its automation program. The development effort began in 1982 and will continue into the 1990s. The full text database structure, content and creation are described. Further enhancements of the automated search system, including additional text files and digital image fascimiles are planned by the end of 1986 and will continue in 1987.     

Patents,Competition, and Firms’ Innovation Incentives

This paper presents fresh evidence on the interaction between industrial property rights (patents) and competition, and their joint effect on firms’ innovation. We use panel data of Spanish manufacturing firms for 1990–2006, as well as external information on European Patent Office and US Patent Office patent counts. We construct a new synthetic measure of competition and estimate the impact of patents on this measure at the industry level. Then, the effect of industry-wide competition and patenting on firms’ innovation is estimated at the firm level. Our results suggest that patents reduce the level of competition in the industry, whereas the effect of competition on innovation varies with the type of innovation indicator. Thus, by lowering competition, patents in an industry exert an indirect effect on innovation besides their direct effect. In addition, interaction effects between patents and competition indicate that patents soften the impact of competition changes on firms’ innovation.     

Influences of counting methods on country rankings: a perspective from patent analysis

The counting of patents and citations is commonly used to evaluate technological innovation and its impact. However, in an age of increasing international collaboration, the counting of international collaboration patents has become a methodological issue. This study compared country rankings using four different counting methods (i.e. whole counting, straight counting, whole-normalized counting, complete-normalized counting) in patent, citation and citation-patent ratio (CP ratio) counts. It also observed inflation depending on the method used. The counting was based on the complete 1992–2011 patent and citation data issued by United States Patent and Trademark Office. The results show that counting methods have only minor effects on country rankings in patent count, citation count and CP ratio count. All four counting methods yield reliable country ranks in technology innovation capability and impact. While the influences of counting methods vary between patent count, citation count and CP ratio count, counting methods may exert slightly greater effects on CP ratio counts than on patent and citation counts. As for the inflation, the distributions of higher and lower inflation by the four counting methods are different in patent, citation and CP ratio counts.     

Patent analysis of genetic engineering research in Japan,Korea and Taiwan

The aim of this study is to reveal the research growth, the distribution of research productivity and impact of genetic engineering research in Japan, Korea and Taiwan by taking patent bibliometrics approach. This study uses quantitative methods adopt from bibliometrics to analyze the patents granted to Japan, Korea and Taiwan by United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) from 1991 to 2002. In addition to patent and citation count, Bradford’s Law is applied to identify core assignees in genetic engineering. Patent coupling approach is taken to further analyze the patents granted to the core assignees to enclose the correlations among the core assignees. 13,055 genetic engineering patents were granted during the period of 1991 to 2002. Japan, Korea and Taiwan own 841 patents and Japan owns most of them. 270 assignees shared 841 patents and 16 core assignees are identified by the Bradford’s Law. 18,490 patents were cited by the 13,055 patents and 1,146 out of the 18,490 cited patents were granted to Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The results show Japan performs best in productivity and research impact among three countries. The core assignees are also Japan based institutions and four technical clusters are identified by patent coupling.     

The international preliminary examination of patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty — a proxy for patent value?

One way to achieve international patent protection is to file patents via the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). The application process therein can be divided into two phases, those represented by chapters I and II of the PCT. According to the literature, patent applications filed via chapter II of the Treaty tend to be more valuable. The results presented in this paper suggest that in general this assumption is not justified. The analyses further revealed that for practitioners seeking fast patent protection at the European Patent Office (EPO) via the PCT, the choice should be chapter II of the PCT, with the EPO as preliminary examination authority.     

Modernization of the Danish Patent Office

The article describes the problems which built up in the Danish Patent Office from 1977 to 1983, when it was thought that the government would ratify the European Patent Convention, and the steps taken since then to modernize the Office and deal with the staff problems and the backlogs which had built up when it became clear that ratification would not be achieved. The backlog of 40 000 pending patent applications was trimmed by over 7000 applications in which there was now no interest, extra staff engaged, outside training assistance sought, and a large computerisation program initiated. Efficiency of the technical staff resources is enhanced by postponing the examination of priority claiming applications until information of the progress of these applications to grant in one of a number of specified countries is obtained from the INPADOC PFS and PRS databases. The modernization of the Office, which is directed towards its internal structures and procedures, has for its purpose the improvement not only of services to applicants for industrial property rights, but also of services to users of patent information.     

The classification of plants in the United States Patent Classification system

More than 11 100 plant patents have been granted US Patent and Trademark Office since 1931. The system for classifying such patents for efficient retrieval is a specialized part of the United States Patent Classification. It is described here under the following topics: purpose, the classification schedule, schedule organisation, relationship to design and utility patent classification, class definition, search notes, line notes, hierarchy, and special features of plant patents, such as coloration and the effect of commercial or market practice. The article then considers placement rules for consistent classification of such patents, searching for a patented plant, and aids for such searching. Illustrative examples of the schedule, and of the placement of and retrieval of plant patents are provided.     

Chinese patent applications reach six figures in 1996

Since the Chinese Patent Office started accepting patent applications on 1 April 1985, the yearly patent application number has increased steadily, although a sluggish period appeared later. The Office expected to reach the 100,000 year mark in the last year of the century, that also will be the end of the national “Ninth Five-year Plan” period. However, the promotion of science and technology and the sustained and rapid economic growth in the country have shown China to be a huge potential market, and this has contributed to a recent sharp increase in patent applications both from home and abroad. The number of applications filed in 1996 reached 102,735, 23.7% higher than the total number of 83,044 made in 1995. Of the 1996 applications, 80% came from domestic applicants and 20% were of foreign origin. The Chinese Patent Office granted 43,780 patents in the same year. A faster examination process of better quality and a more efficient overall administration procedure were scheduled at the Patent Office in order to cope with the new challenge.     

Examiner trust in applicants to the European Patent Office: country specificities

Indicators based on the probability of applicant citations in patents have been used to emphasize the importance of distinguishing applicant and examiner citations. However, the interpretation of these indicators and of the presence of applicant citations in European Patent Office (EPO) examiner reports is still uncertain. Based on interviews with patent examiners and patent applicants, we develop the idea that applicant citations in EPO examiner reports indicate examiner trust in applicants, and that this trust varies according to national patterns. Using EPO data for over 3,500,000 citations during 1997–2007, we verify that examiner trust in applicants is higher in granted patents. Examiners trust applicants from scientifically or economically strong countries, from member states of the European Patent Organization, and from the same country of the examiners.     

Technological collaboration patterns in solar cell industry based on patent inventors and assignees analysis

This study examines technological collaboration in the solar cell industry using the information of patent assignees and inventors as defined by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Three different collaborative types, namely local (same city), domestic (different cities of the same country), and international collaboration, are discussed. The general status of solar cell patent collaborations, transforming trends of collaborative patterns, average numbers of assignees and inventors for three collaborative types, and international collaboration countries are studied. It is found that co-invented patents and co-assigned patents have both increased in numbers during the four decades studied, and that collaboration between technology owners is very low while the collaboration between inventors is active. Domestic collaboration is the main collaborative pattern for both assignee collaboration and inventor collaboration. The other two collaborative types show contrary trends: international collaboration has slowly risen in the past decades while local collaboration has dwindled. The US has the largest number of internationally collaborative patents worldwide, though such patents account for a low portion of total US patents. In contrast, China has a small total number of patents and internationally collaborative patents, however its international collaborative shares are higher. The international collaboration patents among countries are few. A co-assigned patent analysis indicates that the main international cooperation partner of the United States is Japan. Based on an international co-invented patent analysis, the main international collaboration partners of the United States are Britain, Japan, and Germany; and the United States is also the most important collaboration partner of China.     

Electric current activated/assisted sintering (ECAS): a review of patents 1906–2008

Abstract

The electric current activated/assisted sintering (ECAS) is an ever growing class of versatile techniques for sintering particulate materials. Despite the tremendous advances over the last two decades in ECASed materials and products there is a lack of comprehensive reviews on ECAS apparatuses and methods. This paper fills the gap by tracing the progress of ECAS technology from 1906 to 2008 and surveys 642 ECAS patents published over more than a century. It is found that the ECAS technology was pioneered by Bloxam (1906 GB Patent No. 9020) who developed the first resistive sintering apparatus. The patents were searched by keywords or by cross-links and were withdrawn from the Japanese Patent Office (342 patents), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (175 patents), the Chinese State Intellectual Property Office of P.R.C. (69 patents) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (12 patents). A subset of 119 (out of 642) ECAS patents on methods and apparatuses was selected and described in detail with respect to their fundamental concepts, physical principles and importance in either present ECAS apparatuses or future ECAS technologies for enhancing efficiency, reliability, repeatability, controllability and productivity. The paper is divided into two parts, the first deals with the basic concepts, features and definitions of basic ECAS and the second analyzes the auxiliary devices/peripherals. The basic ECAS is classified with reference to discharge time (fast and ultrafast ECAS). The fundamental principles and definitions of ECAS are outlined in accordance with the scientific and patent literature.     

Patents resulting from NSF's engineering program

This report presents the results of a study of engineering research project grants funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) between 1968 and 1977. The purpose was to determine the extent to which the grants led to patented technology and to estimate the economic value of those patents.From the names of the principal investigators supported by NSF Engineering grants, who are also named as inventors on engineering patents registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, an examination was made by technology experts from SRI International, Inc. to determine the relevance of each grant to its associated patent. An independent assessment was also made to evaluate the commercial potential of each patent and to estimate its economic value.The study found that from some 4077 NSF Engineering project grants awarded between 1968 and 1977, about 2.6 grantees in 100 produced patents linked to his or her grant. Some 248 patents were examined in this study. Although few patents produced any economic value, seven of these patents were licensed, with royalties ranging from $10 000 to $250 000 annually.The total long-term royalties expected from the linked patents investigated is estimated as high as $52.5 million. The aggregate value to the U.S. economy from the sales of products derived from those patents could range between ten and twenty times that amount, depending upon the industry.One observation from the study is that a strong patent licensing program is becoming valuable to universities, not just for producing royalty income, but for the additional sponsored research funds it attracts from industrial firms.     

The more you spend, the more you get? The effects of R&D and capital expenditures on the patenting activities of biotechnology firms

This paper provides evidence on the mechanisms influencing the patent output of a sample of small and large, entrepreneurial and established biotechnology firms from the input of indirect knowledge acquired from capital expenditures and direct knowledge from in-house R&D. Statistical models of counts are used to analyse the relationship between patent applications and R&D investment and capital expenditures. It focuses on biotechnology in the period 2002–2007 and is based on a unique data set drawn from various sources including the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard, the European Patent Office (EPO), the US Patent and Trademark Office, and the World Intellectual Property Organisation. The statistical models employed in the paper are Poisson distribution generalisations with the actual distribution of patent counts fitting the negative binomial distribution and gamma distribution very well. Findings support the idea that capital expenditures—taken as equivalent to technical change embodied in new machinery and capital equipment—may also play a crucial role in the development of new patentable items from scientific companies. For EPO patents, this role appears even more important than that played by R&D investment. The overall picture emerging from our analysis of the determinants of patenting in biotechnology is that the innovation process involves a well balanced combination of inputs from both R&D and new machinery and capital equipment.     

Patent analyses in the changed legal regime of the US Patent Law since 2001

In 2001, a new ruling for the publication of patent applications at the United States Patent and Trademark Office came into effect. Since then, all applications which are also filed with foreign offices have to be published 18 months after the application date, in analogy to the ruling in Europe and Japan. This new regime replaces the former system where only granted patents were published. With about 70% of all applications the share of pre-grant publications of applications of US origin is quite high, allowing new types of statistical analysis. In particular, the investigations of time series based on priority years instead of grant years can thus be performed much more topically. On the one hand, a larger dataset for applications of US origin is available; on the other hand, the sample of applications from Asian countries is generally much larger at the US Patent Office than at the European Patent Office. Despite these new opportunities, searches at low levels of aggregation by codes of the International Patent Classification still have to be handled with care.     

Significant difference of dependence upon scientific knowledge among different technologies

Summary The authors have constructed an original database of the full text of the Japanese Patent Gazette published since 1994. The database includes not only the front page but also the body text of more than 880,000 granted Japanese patents. By reading the full texts of all 1,500 patent samples, we found that some inventors cite many academic papers in addition to earlier patents in the body texts of their Japanese patents. Using manually extracted academic paper citations and patent citations as “right” answers, we fine-tuned a search algorithm that automatically retrieves cited scientific papers and patents from the entire texts of all the Japanese patents in the database. An academic paper citation in a patent text indicates that the inventor used scientific knowledge in the cited paper when he/she invented the idea codified in the citing patent. The degree of science linkage, as measured by the number of research papers cited in patent documents, is particularly strong in biotechnology. Among other types of technology, those related to photographic-sensitized material, cryptography, optical computing, and speech recognition also show strong science linkage. This suggests that the degree of dependence on scientific knowledge differs from technology to technology and therefore, different ways of university-industry collaboration are necessary for different technology fields.