International Comparisons - International co-operation in patents 1999–2013

Foreign ownership of domestic inventions: number of patents invented by resident(s) of country x (inventor) that are owned by at least one foreign resident (applicant) from country y;
Percentage of patents owned by foreign residents: share of indicator above in total patents invented by resident(s) of country x (inventor);
Domestic ownership of inventions made abroad: number of patents owned by resident(s) of country x (applicant) that have been invented by at least one foreign resident (inventor) from country y;
Percentage of patents invented abroad: share of indicator above in total patents owned by resident(s) of country x (applicant);
Patents with at least a foreign co-inventor: number of patents invented by a resident of country x with at least one foreign inventor from country y;
Percentage of patents with at least a foreign co-inventor: share of indicator above in total patents invented by resident(s) of country x (inventor).

Priority date: It corresponds to the first filing worldwide and therefore closest to the invention date.
Application (or filing) date: It occurs generally 12 month after a foreign priority. Using the application date introduces a bias owing to a one-year lag between residents and foreigners.
Date of grant: Even though the date of grant may provide more timely series, it reflects the administrative delays taken by the patent office to grant the patent, with an average of 3 years to more than 5 years after the priority application was filed.
Indicators of international co-operation (EPO, USPTO & PCT):
Cross-border ownership of patents reflects international flows of knowledge from the inventor country to the applicant countries and international flows of funds for research (multinational companies).
Co-inventions represent the international collaboration in the inventive process.

Co-operation is calculated for partners from more than 100 countries worldwide.
Additionally, the average Total Co-operation of a selected country with the rest of the world (WORLD) is provided along with simple counts of all patents for a given country (TOTAL).
NB: Selecting TOTAL in the list of partner countries provides simple counts of all patents: the resulting figures may differ from the TOTAL given in patent counts by main patent classification dataset due to different counting procedure - fractional counts of patents (Total figures are here overestimated for countries with low patenting activity).

The OECD's Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry has developed patent data and indicators that are suitable for statistical analysis and that can help addressing S&T policy issues.
To date, the OECD Patent Database fully covers:
- Patent applications to the European Patent Office (EPO) (from 1978 onwards);
- Patents granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) (from 1976 onwards);
- Patents filed under the Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT), at international phase, that designate the EPO (from 1978 onwards);
- Patents that belong to Triadic Patent Families (OECD definition): i.e. sub-set of patents all filed together at the EPO, at the Japanese Patent Office (JPO) and at the USPTO, protecting the same set of inventions.
EPO and PCT patent counts are based on data received from the EPO (EPO Bibliographic database, patent published until November 2014). Series on Triadic patent families are mainly derived from EPO's Worldwide Statistical Patent Database (PATSTAT, Autumn 2014).

Counting patents with multiple inventors/applicants: the indicators presented here are based on simple counts. They measure the number of patents invented within (or applied for by) a given country that involve at least one foreign assignee (or a foreign inventor). Therefore, it is recommended not to add these indicators across countries, as it would entail multiple counts of a same patent.

At URL provided, select Patent Statistics > Indicators of international co-operation