Patents by regions, 2013

The OECD's Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry has developed patent data and indicators that are suitable for statistical analysis and that can help addressing S&T policy issues.

To date, the OECD Patent Database fully covers:

• Patent applications to the European Patent Office (EPO) (from 1978 onwards);
• Patents applications to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) (granted patents from 1976 onwards, patent filings as of 2001 only);
• Patents filed under the Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT), at international phase, that designate the EPO (from 1978 onwards);
• Patents that belong to Triadic Patent Families (OECD definition): i.e. sub-set of patents all filed together at the EPO, at the Japanese Patent Office (JPO) and at the USPTO, protecting the same set of inventions.

EPO and PCT patent counts are based on data received from the EPO (EPO Bibliographic database, patent published until November 2015).  Series on USPTO patents and Triadic patent families are mainly derived from EPO's Worldwide Statistical Patent Database (PATSTAT, Autumn 2015). Regional data are based on OECD, REGPAT database, February 2016.

Indicators based on patent families improve the international comparability and the quality of patent's indicators (overcoming the drawbacks of traditional patent-based indicators, such as the "home advantage")