1. Timeliness of patent data OECD nowcasting exercise
Hélène DERNIS
The Output of R&D activities: Harnessing the Power of Patents Data JRC-IPTS Seville -14/15 May 2009

2. Outline Criteria for counting patents Timeliness of patent statistics
Nowcasting EPO data
Nowcasting Triadic Patent Families

3. Counting criteria
OECD patent indicators designed to reflect the inventive activity and measure the innovative performance of countries
Counting criteria
Inventor’s country – inventiveness of the local laboratories and labour force of a given country
Priority date – the closest to the date of invention
Major drawback : weaken the timeliness of patent indicators (patent document disclosed 18 months after the priority date)
OECD need to provide a more recent picture to decision makers

4. Patent counts by priority date
Timeliness
Patent counts by priority date
Sources: PATSTAT, September 2008 and OECD Patent Database, October 2008

5. Nowcasting methods
Various methods developed by patent offices and analysts mostly based on:
Trend analysis – extrapolation of trends
Transfer models – prediction of transfer rates of priority filings to patent offices
Econometric models – prediction of patenting based on exogenous variables
OECD perspective : set up simple methods that are robust enough for establishing good predictions of the current patenting activity and for improving the timeliness to only 2-3 years
In 2009, be able to provide figures for 2006 or 2007, for EPO filings and Triadic Patent Families

6. Cause for lack of timeliness
Nowcasting EPO applications
EPO patent applications – 2 routes:
Direct filings to the EPO, as a priority filing or 12 months after priority
Transferred Euro-PCT applications entering the EPO regional phase –30 months after priority
Cause for lack of timeliness
EPO Direct - Publication delay – 18 months after priority
Transf Euro-PCT – Publication around 6 months after transferred to Regional phase -> publication delay of 36 months.

7. Nowcasting EPO applications
Transfer rate of PCT to EPO regional phase
PCT_TRt = Euro-PCTt-1 / PCTt-1
PCT_TRt = ∑i(Euro-PCTt-i)/∑i (PCTt-i) , i=1,2
Extrapolation of missing PCT information using monthly trends for PCT filings when data is partially available for the latest year
Minimum error observed for most countries using transfer rate (sample of 48 countries) for one or two years estimates
Robust over time for large countries (relative to country shares and trends)
However:
weak for small patenting countries - for which the patenting activity is difficult to predict (over/under estimated)
not robust enough for patent counts by technologies

8. Nowcasting Triadic Families
OECD triadic patent families defined as:
sets of patents filed to the EPO and the JPO, and granted by the USPTO, which share one or more priorities
counts based on the earliest priority date
Triadic patent families subject to weaker timeliness:
It takes more time for a patent to be identified as a family member (delays of publication, backlog at USPTO, simple/versus complex family schema)
More data points to predict…

9. Nowcasting Triadic Families
Potential data sources for nowcasting:
EPO filings
JPO filings – no counts by inventor’s country available
USPTO filings - no long time series
Alternative family definition – Patent filed to EPO and JPO

10. Nowcasting Triadic Families
6 linear models tested:
Triadict = f(Triadic/Biadict-1)
Triadict = f(Biadict)
Triadict = f(PTO_Wt), PTO_W = counts of patent filings to EPO (alternatively USPTO or JPO) weighted by the average number of EPO (resp. USPTO, JPO) patents per Triadic Patent Families
Triadict = f(Biadict, USPTO_Wt)
Biadic and EPO weighted models provide the lowest errors of prediction (sample of 48 countries)
Country shares and trends are preserved for most countries
Weights are calculated as the average number of patents filed to the EPO – alternatively USPTO or JPO – that belong to a same triadic patent family.
Coefficients are the most significative for models based on Biadic only and EPO only. Adding USPTO application data to Biadic model does not significantly improve the model.

11. Nowcasting Triadic Families
Triadic patent families estimated using :
Linear model based on biadic patent families (up to the latest year for which the data is complete)
Linear model based on EPO applications (weighted) for the remaining years
Drawbacks:
Weak prediction for small patenting countries
Weak prediction for patent counts by technology
Biadic model applied to data until 2004 for most countries. 2 additional years of data estimated using EPO model.

12. Thank you ! helene.dernis@oecd.org
Further information
Dernis, H. (2007) “Nowcasting Patent Indicators”, STI Working Paper 2007/3, OECD, Paris.
Guidelines for compiling and analysing patent data: OECD Patent Statistics Manual (2009)
OECD work on patents :
Thank you !