Count of European patent applications

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alexis
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Oct 02, 2019 2:25 pm

Count of European patent applications

Post by alexis » Wed May 31, 2023 1:11 pm

Hi,

I am interested in reproducing the statistics on the number of European patent applications per year, specifically focusing on cases where the country of residence of the first applicant is one of the EU-27 countries. (as shown there https://www.epo.org/about-us/annual-rep ... tions.html and also in Eurostat "Patent applications to the EPO by country of applicants and inventors (2004 and onwards; source: EPO)")

I have a couple of questions:

1) Is it possible to (easily) reproduce the statistics on the number of European patent applications reported in the annual statistics on the EPO website? If I understand correctly, the count of EP applications includes both direct EP applications and PCT applications using the EPO route, where the date of entry into the European phase is used (instead of the application filing date). It seems to me that determining the date of entry into the EP regional phase is not straightforward in PATSTAT although it's used to construct the aggregate shown on the EPO website.

Alternatively, I tried to extract the number of EP applications in PATSTAT Online (Spring 2023), using the query below.

Code: Select all

SELECT appln_filing_year, COUNT(*)
FROM tls201_appln AS a
JOIN tls207_pers_appln AS b
ON a.appln_id = b.appln_id
JOIN tls206_person AS  s
ON b.person_id = s.person_id
WHERE  appln_filing_year >= 2000 -- Define year range here
AND appln_auth = 'EP' AND applt_seq_nr = 1
AND s.person_ctry_code IN ('AT', 'BE', 'BG', 'HR', 'CY', 'CZ', 'DK', 'EE', 'FI', 'FR', 'DE', 'GR', 'HU', 'IE', 'IT', 'LV', 'LT', 'LU', 'MT', 'NL', 'PL', 'PT', 'RO', 'SK', 'SI', 'ES', 'SE')
GROUP BY a.appln_filing_year
ORDER BY a.appln_filing_year
2) I noticed that the number of applications obtained from the query is lower for the years 2022 (6905) and 2021 (26906). Can I assume that these figures are only reliable up until the year 2020 due to the maximum 31-month time limit between filing and the end entry into the European phase?

3) I observed a difference between the number of EP applications extracted from the above query (around 50,000 per year for EU-27 applicants) and the count of EP applications published in the EPO annual report (ranging from 60,000 to 67,000 over the last decade). How can we explain this discrepancy of around 10,000 applications? I have read that the count in the annual report/Eurostat also includes withdrawn applications? Do these withdrawn applications appear in PATSTAT? Do they amount to around 10,000 EP application for EU-27 applicants, it seems to be a lot to me.

Thanks.

Alexis


EPO / PATSTAT Support
Posts: 424
Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2007 5:33 pm
Contact:

Re: Count of European patent applications

Post by EPO / PATSTAT Support » Wed Jun 14, 2023 9:31 am

Hello Alexis,
it is in principle impossible to reproduce the filing figures published by the EPO, using PATSTAT. The data is based on applications (including applications that have been withdrawn - witdrawels before publication are NOT in PATSTAT, and nowhere else for that matter, except in EPO statistics.) The statistics also includes the un-published patents (also not in PATSTAT) , and it mixes the PCT's with the EP's based on different criteria dates. (as you pointed out, and what is mentioned in the published statistics). That is why the data for the last 3 years will be different. (PCT applications can take upto 31 months before they become "visible" as EP applications -as you als observed-. ) So up to 2020 included should be more or less ok.

Defining "the date of entry into the EP regional phase" is indeed not straightforward as it depends on a number of separate conditions to be fulfilled. (I sometimes use the payment of the examination fee to have a "silver bullet" approach across all EP applications, but researchers have to decide for themselves what criteria to use.)

Your query limit patents to eu-27 applicants, even more narrowing to the fact that is "AND applt_seq_nr = 1" is enforced. So a first US applicant with a DE applicant will not get picked up.

I am not sure what data you compare to with regards to eu-27.
Also, in your query, as you have joined the tls206_person table, it is good practice to do a count(distinct(a.appn_id)) in order to avoid double counting. (which will not happen in your case because of the "AND applt_seq_nr = 1" enforcement, but on the other hand, you might miss out some applications now). I am aware that our published reports also uses "first applicant", but I can not guarantee that "first" is the same for applt_seq_nr = 1 (exept for US applications).

Code: Select all

SELECT appln_filing_year, COUNT(distinct(a.appln_id))
FROM tls201_appln AS a
JOIN tls207_pers_appln AS b
ON a.appln_id = b.appln_id
JOIN tls206_person AS  s
ON b.person_id = s.person_id
WHERE  appln_filing_year >= 2000 -- Define year range here
AND appln_auth = 'EP' AND applt_seq_nr > 0
AND s.person_ctry_code IN ('AT', 'BE', 'BG', 'HR', 'CY', 'CZ', 'DK', 'EE', 'FI', 
'FR', 'DE', 'GR', 'HU', 'IE', 'IT', 'LV', 'LT', 'LU', 'MT', 'NL', 'PL', 'PT', 'RO',
'SK', 'SI', 'ES', 'SE')
GROUP BY a.appln_filing_year
ORDER BY a.appln_filing_year
Hope you find this usefull.
PATSTAT Support Team
EPO - Vienna
patstat @ epo.org


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