EPO - Discussion forums

Hello,

Should we set a time window when computing generality index or originality index of a patent?

I suppose we should set a time window, which just like computing the number of citation of each patent (as the earlier application tends to be cited more than the later applications because it exists longer).

But I did not find any paper mentions that. So i confused about it. Is there any thing I ignore here? and should we set a time window?

thanks in advance.

Hello Darwin,
your reasoning is correct that the purpose of the time frame is to avoid bias by the publications that have been "longer around".
I have seen studies (Harhoff) that use 5 years, we used 3 years in our getting started paper. The bigger your time window, the less you can work with the most recent publication - they need to have been around for 5 years. You could maybe now-cast; but I don't think that the final results would make much difference. There is enough citation data in PATSTAT to try out both models

Geert BOEDT