Latest full year in PATSTAT

Here you can post your opinions, ask questions and share experiences on the PATSTAT product line. Please always indicate the PATSTAT edition (e.g. 2015 Autumn Edition) and the database (e.g. PATSTAT Online, MySQL, MS SQL Server, ...) you are using.
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Renee.vdiemen
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 5:03 pm

Latest full year in PATSTAT

Post by Renee.vdiemen » Tue Jul 18, 2017 5:14 pm

Hi All,

In a published by the EPO and UNEP in 2015 (http://documents.epo.org/projects/babyl ... ope_en.pdf), it says that "in this study, patent applications are sorted by priority year. Because they are first published 18 months after filing, there is a lag between the filing date and the time at which they are observed in the PATSTAT database. For this reason, analysis of the data beyond 2011, which is the latest comprehensive year in the June 2015 version of PATSTAT, is not possible."

I wanted to check what the latest comprehensive year in the Spring 2017 version of PATSTAT is? Is this the end of 2013, or 2014?

Thanks,
Renée


Geert Boedt
Posts: 176
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:36 am
Location: Vienna

Re: Latest full year in PATSTAT - coverage

Post by Geert Boedt » Thu Jul 20, 2017 2:04 pm

Hello Renée,

The short answer would be: the large majority of the applications filed in 2014 are available in Spring 2017 across most of the major patent authorities.
(A delay of data delivery by a national patent office will result in delayed availability via PATSTAT and any other patent information product.)

All the rest “depends”.

In principle there will always be a delay of 18 months between the filing date and the publication date. Therefore, one could conclude that all applications filed in 2014 should already be available in Autumn 2016. (Example: filing 31/12/2014 + 18 months = End of June 2016, which would be in time for the data base extraction needed for the Autumn 2016 Edition production cycle.) This rule is applicable to all direct EP applications.

However, many EP applications are based on an earlier filed PCT application (increasing trend).
The filing date for the EP application will (should) be identical to the filing date of the earlier PCT filing, but the applicant has up to 31 months of time (following the priority date) to decide whether or not the application will become a European application. This increases the publication of the European application to about 34 months from the priority date, or about 22-23 months from the application date. One has to keep in mind that when the applicant effectively waits the full 31 months to make a decision whether to continue with a European patent, it will take an extra 6-8 weeks for the EP patent to be published due to the preperatory work to publish.
So back to the example: national patent filed on 31/12/2014, subsequent PCT filed on 30/12/2015 + 22 months for the EP national phase to be published = October 2017 available to the public. That EP application will be available in PATSTAT Spring 2018 version. Observe that this “artefact” is applicable to all national phase applications (based on a PCT) filed at any national (or regional) patent office. So it will not distort the trends when comparing one patent office to the other.
So the Spring 2017 edition is complete until and including earliest filing year 2013 if want to have national phase patents included.

If your research justifies using “families” and “priority” dates, the “invention” will of course be available through the original priority filing. But if you limit your research to EP applications, including those that are based on an earlier PCT filings, you will partly miss out on those EP applications that are based on an earlier PCT filing. We have seen an increasing trend of EP patents being filed based on an earlier PCT filing.

The attached excel sheet gives you a visualisation of the coverage for EP, US and JP applications filed in 2010, 2012 an 2014 over the spring 2012 --> 2017 PATSTAT releases.
coverage_release.xlsx
(16.56 KiB) Downloaded 327 times

I hope this answers your question.
Best regards,

Geert Boedt
PATSTAT support
Business Use of Patent Information
EPO Vienna


Renee.vdiemen
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 5:03 pm

Re: Latest full year in PATSTAT

Post by Renee.vdiemen » Thu Aug 17, 2017 4:20 pm

Hi Geert,

Thank you so much for your response.

I am very keen to examine the latest data possible, and so I would like to ask two follow-up questions.
- As this delay is applicable to national phase applications filed at a national or regional patent office, would examining PCT applications instead mean that the latest available data in the Spring 2017 edition is 2014 (or actually, halfway through 2015)?
- If I broaden my search to look at "patent families" instead, would the latest available year in the database be later than 2013, as the "invention" should be available through the original priority filing?

Many thanks for your help!

Renée


Geert Boedt
Posts: 176
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:36 am
Location: Vienna

Re: Latest full year in PATSTAT

Post by Geert Boedt » Fri Sep 01, 2017 4:04 pm

Hello Renee,
PCT applications follow the normal 18 month delay between application and publication, similar to what a direct EP application would show. Therefore, with the increasing trend of EP applications being preceded by an earlier PCT, looking at PCT's will give researchers a "pre-view" of what might come into EP as well.
In short: PATSTAT 2017 Spring will contain the PCT publications that have been published until 26/01/2017 and the filing dates are in most cases around 18 months before.
This query gives you an idea:

Code: Select all

select top 50 appln_auth, appln_nr appln_kind, appln_filing_date, earliest_publn_date,earliest_filing_id, appln_id
from tls201_appln
where appln_kind = 'w' and appln_id < 900000000
order by earliest_publn_date desc
On patent families: if the nature of your research is not bound to the patent authority where a patent was filed, then looking at applications on "family level" would give you a more comprehensive picture then restricting to PCT (through kind code = 'W'), EP or any other authority. Such an approach might useful for example when comparing applicants that have the resources to actively use active and planned patent filing strategies.
Best regards,

Geert Boedt
PATSTAT support
Business Use of Patent Information
EPO Vienna


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