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The Worldwide Count of Priority Patents: A New Indicator of Inventive Activity

Author

Listed:
  • Gaétan de Rassenfosse

    (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne)

  • Hélène Dernis

    (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)

  • Dominique Guellec

    (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)

  • Lucio Picci

    (Department of Economics, Università di Bologna, and IPTS-JRC, European Commission)

  • Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie

    (Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, Université libre de Bruxelles, and Bruegel)

Abstract

This paper describes a new patent-based indicator of inventive activity. The indicator is based on counting all the priority patent applications filed by a country’s inventors, regardless of the patent office in which the application is filed, and can therefore be considered as a complete ‘matrix’ of all patent counts. The method has the advantage of covering more inventions than the selective Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) or triadic families counts, while at the same time limiting the home-country bias of single-country-based indicators (inventors from a particular country tend to file in their own country). The indicator is particularly useful to identify emerging technologies and to assess the innovation performance of developing economies.

Suggested Citation

  • Gaétan de Rassenfosse & Hélène Dernis & Dominique Guellec & Lucio Picci & Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, 2012. "The Worldwide Count of Priority Patents: A New Indicator of Inventive Activity," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2012n23, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    • Handle: RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2012n23
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Patent count; patent indicator; patent statistics; Patstat; priority count; priority filing; worldwide count;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries

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