Keeping track of global patent data

Innovation is a global phenomenon. Everywhere you look, great ideas to solve problems, both local and global, are being developed into practical and tangible solutions. This investment in innovation resulting in published patents can be tracked and mined to see what technology is being developed where and who is looking to invest in which region.  

Globally, over 6.3 million patent documents representing over 3.5 million new inventions were published last year.  Inventions from 50 countries/regions are available within the Derwent World Patent Index (DWPI) as intellectually enhanced English language summaries with detailed classification and indexing.   But the world does not stand still.  In recent years, countries of the former Soviet Union now known as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have become increasingly important not only as origins of innovation, but as important markets for international investment and protection of rights.  This in part is due to the Chinese “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) which was launched in 2013 and enshrined into the Chinese constitution in October 2017.

CIS itself has a rapidly growing economy, with the member countries averaging 3.7% growth in GDP in 2017.  This growth is underpinned by the significant investment from China as a result of BRI, along with increasing patenting activity in the region. 

Domestically, innovation is focused on diagnosis, surgery, electric power engineering, scientific instrumentation, biotechnology and oil production. Internationally, CIS is important for the pharmaceutical industry with international patent family coverage being extended to the CIS region which is driven by a desire to prevent generics being made in the country, as much as the local market size.

To ensure DWPI continues to cover the expanding global patent market, we are expanding our jurisdictional coverage for CIS (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan), and patents published via the regional Eurasian Patent Organization (EAPO) starting with current patents being added first followed by addition of backfile data going back to 2002 over the next few months.  This enhancement increases the coverage of DWPI to 59 authorities and two defensive publications.

Increasing coverage in DWPI enables the database to provide more efficient technology monitoring, prior art and freedom to operate searching, through comprehensive and authoritative English Language summaries/abstracts, and intellectually applied indexing. 

As the economies of other countries and regions continue to evolve, so patent activity and the need to capture that activity grows.  The addition of CIS to DWPI is just the first stage of building out our data sets in line with emerging economies and increased commercial filings in those regions.  Over the next few months, we will be adding additional curated full text information to our Global Patent Data collection.

To learn more, download the full white paper here.