Learn About Patents Around the World

 
 
 
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5 posts
katherinet@gre…
Last seen: 04/27/2021 - 16:50
Joined: 04/20/2021 - 11:30
Number of patents filed

Hi there,

I am new to the USPTO data and am trying to look for the most current figures in the total number of patents filed by county by year. I know that the data has been previously available in 2015, but there has not been a release of current figures. I have contacted the office multiple times but they send me to different departments who do not have voicemails. I also cannot find an email of someone who works with the statistical data. 

Is there a place to find the number of patents filed currently? I am somewhat familiar with using R and Python, but I don't know which data would be the most useful to find these numbers.

Any help is much appreciated. Thank you! 

Thu, 04/22/2021 - 00:59
Russ
Last seen: 03/15/2024 - 23:34
Joined: 11/14/2017 - 22:15
could use bulk files

I don't think this can be done using the api but you could join two of the bulk application files on https://patentsview.org/download/pg-download-tables  Check out the pre-grant data dictionary linked on that page. There can be multiple inventors per application so you probably will want to count only the first applicant's country (see the definition of rawinventor's rawlocation_id in the data dictionary).

If they were database tables you could do something like
select country, year(date), count(1) from application, rawinventor
where application.document_number=rawinventor.document_number and sequence = 0
group by country, year(date) order by country, year(date)

Hopefully you can translate that into R.  There is an R package and python wrapper for the api but you'd be on your own for dealing with the bulk files.


Russ

 

Thu, 04/22/2021 - 08:54
Russ
Last seen: 03/15/2024 - 23:34
Joined: 11/14/2017 - 22:15
wont be perfect

I should have mentioned that this won't be perfect.  When an application is filed, the applicants can suppress publication if they choose and are only applying for a patent in the United States.  This means that the application won't be in the patent office's bulk pre-grant xml files that become application.tsv.  You'll be under-counting to a degree only the patent office could supply.  

Take a look at the granted_patent_crosswalk on the bulk download page.  It doesn't have a document number for every granted patent since 2001 (when the application data became available) .  It only has  3,479,260 rows while there have been over 5 million patents issued since 2001.  

You could count the granted patents per country per year using the granted bulk download files but that's different than the filed counts.  

It seems only the patent office can truly answer your question.  

Sorry, Russ

Tue, 04/27/2021 - 16:48
katherinet@gre…
Last seen: 04/27/2021 - 16:50
Joined: 04/20/2021 - 11:30
Thank you Russ! I appreciate…

Thank you Russ! I appreciate your help and expertise. I'll see what I can find in exploring the data.

 

Thanks again!

Katherine

Wed, 08/25/2021 - 13:49
chrislwood
Last seen: 08/27/2021 - 17:17
Joined: 08/25/2021 - 13:45
Trying to figure this out

I'm wondering whether the original poster, Katherine, has figured this out. I'm also seeking to obtain patent data — applications and granted patents — by county, not by country. Thanks in advance.