Change in Chinese patent reporting

[ZanHB]

Hi all,

In doing a research project on patent inventorship patterns, I came across what seems like an odd change in Chinese patents. Specifically, it seems like around 2008 the Chinese patent office mostly stopped publishing inventor country.

Using the de Rassenfosse et al algorithm (with Patstat offline Fall 2016), one can compare the number of Chinese-PO patents with inventor country listed directly vs Chinese-PO patents where one must use applicant information (or direct patent-office assignment) to determine inventor country. By year, we have (in two columns):

Code: Select all

   inventor-country listed, inventor-country not listed
2006: 285000, 38000
2007: 284000, 85000
2008: 187000, 179000
2009: 66000, 276000
2010: 7000, 363000

So what I'm wondering is,
1. Can anyone else confirm that this is real, and not the result of faulty data extraction on my part? A mistake is entirely possible.
2. Does anyone know why this change occurred?

Any other comment would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Alexander

[pstek]

Hi Alexander,

I can only confirm that I've noticed a similar change regarding inventor country for China.

Pieter