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Patent applications share
Definition
The indicator patent application share (expressed as a percentage) is defined as:
the number of patent applications made by an actor (institution, country, etc.) in the French or European patent system, proportional to the number of patent applications made by all the actors within a given frame of reference (world, for example) in the patent system under consideration.
- Consult "patent share" to learn more about the definition used in the case of the American patent system.
Example 1
Table 1-4-57
France : technological production – share of European patent applications and share of American patents granted, over a long period (1993 – 2004).
- Click to enlarge (taken from the OST Report – 2006 edition)
Interpretation: In 2004 the world share of patent applications made by French research in the European patent system was 5.6% while in the American system France accounted for 2.5%. In the European system France's share was 7.8% in 1993; from that date until 2004 its share dropped by 0.2 percentage points regularly each year, for a total decrease over the period of 2.2%. From 2003 to 2004 French share leveled off at 5.6% of world patent applications. In 1993 French share of the US patent system was 3.5%, and this share has been decreasing since that date.
Example 2
Figure 3-19
Change (%) in the European share of European patent applications by France, Germany and the United Kingdom from 1988 to 2004.
- Click to enlarge (taken from the OST Report – 2006 edition)
Interpretation: European shares of European patent applications made by France and the UK have decreased since 1988.
Example 3
Figure 5-4
World share (%) of (a) European patent applications and (b) American patents granted in 2004 and change over the period 1999 to 2004 of the share of all countries whose share in 2004 was greater than 1%, and of those countries whose share grew most rapidly in each of the two patent systems.
- Click to enlarge (taken from the OST Report – 2006 edition)
Interpretation: Since 1999 the leading countries in technological production worldwide (United States, Japan, EU member states) have experienced a shrinking of their position in the European and American patent systems while certain Asian nations have made remarkable progress in their world share (most notably South Korea in the European system and Taiwan in the American system).