Number of patents applied/granted

[Student_Constance]

Hi,

concerning my recent research project I need the following data:

the number of patents granted/applied concerning a specific company in a specific year.

For example:

Company: Robert Bosch GmbH
Year: 2010

To promote the understanding of my question this link may help:
https://www.epo.org/about-us/annual-rep ... .html#tab1

Note: "Analysis based on European patent applications filed with the EPO in 2016 (Direct first and subsequent European applications and International (PCT) applications entering the European phase in 2016). Statistics are based on the first-named applicant."

Which database is the best choice for my search query?
PATSTAT? Espacenet? European Patent Register?

How can I ensure that all subsidiaries of the company are included in the calculation?

Thanks for you support!

[Geert Boedt]

Your question is less straightforward then it looks because the official filing figures are calculated on internal EPO data. Due to the 18 month publication delay, data for 2016 is not yet available for external users. For 2010, the data should be available, but the methodology used can not be 100% replicated with the available public patent information products.
The filing figures are the sum of a direct applications filed at the EPO + PCT applications that have entered the European phase. Filing dates for direct applications is a fixed date. Defining a date for "Entry into the European phase" is more complicated because there are a number of conditions (procedural steps) that need to be fulfilled before the application enters the EP phase. Without being exhaustive: a request has to be filed, filing fee - entry EP-phase - has to be paid as well as designation fee. If you want to get close to similar published figures, the best available proxy to "get a date" is the filing fee for entry into EP-phase. This date linked to the payment event can however be 1.5 to 3 years after the filing date (which is the same date as the PCT filing date.) Therefore, if you want to replicate those figures you will need to use PATSTAT Register to get the date for the "filing fee - entry EP-phase - " event. (In the next PATSTAT release, we will probably also have an event -and date- that specifies the "Request for entry into European phase".) Similar data will be available via GPI.
Personally; I think if you want to make statistics on a certain applicant, it might be better to only use the application filing date from all EP applications. This might include some EP PCT filings that do not enter the EP phase, but you will use the same "date" for all application routes. (Alternative would be to use the earliest_filing_date available in tls201 from PATSTAT Biblio.

On your question related the name variations: "subsidiaries of the company " are not linked or grouped. You will need to that yourself. If you only consider EP applications, then the names of the applicants will be reasonable clean and harmonised. (An alternative is to use the PSN or HAN names from table tls206) You could use for example the query below to see what applicant you would retain by using wild cards. That can help you to fine tune the query, for example by directly using a set of the customer_id's.

Code: Select all

SELECT  name, address_1, address_2,  address_3, country, customer_id,
 count(distinct (id)) applications
FROM reg107_parties
where name like '%Robert Bosch%' and type = 'a'
group by name, address_1, address_2, address_3,country, customer_id
order by count(distinct (id)) desc

Making use of a set of customer_id's

Code: Select all

SELECT 'Robert Bosch', year(appln_filing_date), count(distinct(reg101_appln.id)) as applications
  FROM  reg101_appln join reg107_parties on reg101_appln.id = reg107_parties.id
  where customer_id in ('0100209326','0101244499','0100981882','0100209328','0101011388',
  '0100726862','0100209331','0101069329','0100744284','0100209345','0100209327') 
--  ETC...
  and type= 'a'
  group by year(appln_filing_date)

Making use of the name with wildcards:

Code: Select all

SELECT 'Robert Bosch', year(appln_filing_date), count(distinct(reg101_appln.id)) as applications
  FROM  reg101_appln join reg107_parties on reg101_appln.id = reg107_parties.id
  where name like '%Robert Bosch%' and type = 'a'
  and type= 'a'
  group by year(appln_filing_date)