Countries
For the 653 patent families, we determined in which countries patents and patent applications had been published (only published patent applications and patents are found in the patent data). Each country is counted once per family regardless of how many patent documents are in that count. Using this criteria - and including WIPO, the international patent office - there is a total of 4110 countries for 653 families.
Some overcounting can occur however in the case of countries that are parties to the European Patent Convention. This results from the European Patent Office being counted as a country, when it is a regional patent office that examines and grants patents which must then be registered in individual European countries. Thus, if a patent application is granted by the EPO and registered in Great Britain and France, it appears that the patent occurs in three countries, when it actually is only in two countries. If EPO is not counted at all, an undercount will result because it excludes patent applications that are pending at the EPO and not yet registered in any country. Alternatively, all countries (34 countries as of July 2008) that are part of the EPO could be consolidated and considered as a single country - Europe. By doing this, the count increases from 375 patent families filed at EPO to 439 filed at EPO or any EPC country, indicating that nearly all patent documents (applications and patents) in European countries are also published by the EPO. At the same time, the total number of country publications dropped from 4110 to 3039, indicating that European patents are registered in only a few countries (2 to 3 on average).
As can be seen in the graph below, over 60% of patent families have an application lodged and published in the EPO, WIPO, and U.S. PTO. Other major jurisdictions are Australia, Japan and Canada. The percentage of families with patent filings in China is intermediate between the major jurisdictions and all the others. Within Europe, the highest numbers of patent filings are in Germany (29% of all families), Austria (22%), Spain (17%), Denmark(16%) and Great Britain (15%). Interestingly, only 6% of all patent families have a filing in India, which has a large pharmaceutical industry.
country codes: EP - EPO; WO - WIPO; US - United States; AU - Australia; JP - Japan; CA - Canada; CN - China; BR - Brazil; NZ - New Zealand; ZA - South Africa; KR - Korea; MX - Mexico; IL - Israel; IN - India; TW - Taiwan; HK - Hong Kong; AR - Argentina; UA - Ukraine; SU - Russian Federation; OA - OAPI (African countries); EA - Eastern Asian countries; UY - Uruguay; SG - Singapore; RO - Romania; CS - Serbia Montenegro; YU - Yugoslavia; CY - Cyprus; DZ - Algeria; GC - Arab Gulf States; MY - Malaysia; PH - Philippines.
The information contained in this page was believed to be correct at the time it was collated. New patents and patent applications, altered status of patents, and case law may have resulted in changes in the landscape. CAMBIA makes no warranty that it is correct or up to date at this time and accepts no liability for any use that might be made of it. Corrections or updates to the information are welcome. Please send an email to info@bios.net.
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