National patent shares in major EU countries

This post examines the patent shares of five major EU countries from 1990 to 2014, using their publications in the PCT system. It is a follow-up to my Country shares in PCT patent applications, 2014 versus 2013 post, which I recommend should be read first. PCT stands for the Patent Cooperation Treaty, a world-wide agreement to simplify and cheapen patenting which countries can join (only residents or citizens of member states can use it).

I wanted to see how Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain did during this period. How had their numbers fared, by date-span or against each other ? Italy only joined the PCT in 1985 and Spain in 1989 and hence the data provided starts from 1990. I suspect that figures were low for these countries at least in the initial years due more to low interest or awareness of the opportunity, rather than necessarily to low innovation.

I found that during the 1980-84 period the three EU countries then in the PCT (Germany, France and the UK) together added up to 19.7% of all PCT total publications. Possibly this figure is boosted by the headquarters of the PCT being based locally, at WIPO in Geneva. The EU major countries' share rose to a high of 29.3% for the 1990-94 date-span but then declined, to just 13.6% in 2010-14. The Far East, and to some extent other countries, were fast increasing their numbers of applications, but the figures suggest that the EU is clearly in decline as a technological innovator. I am aware that EU countries such as Belgium and Sweden are missing but their inclusion would not significantly change the picture.

The first table gives the actual numbers of patent applications under the PCT within five-year date-spans from 1990 to 2014.

	Germany	France	UK	Italy	Spain	Total
1990-94	14226	5570	12213	1441	351	33801
1995-99	34537	11429	19526	3454	1172	70118
2000-04	61807	19973	30108	6584	2278	120750
2005-09	71853	24358	28867	9493	4278	138849
2010-14	68888	28329	25535	11104	5657	139513

While this is of interest more analysis is needed.

The second table gives the national percentage of share of the major country EU total by date-span. This makes it clear that Germany has been the EU's powerhouse of innovation as well as of industry, and makes it clearer that the UK's performance has disastrously declined. Its "market share" has almost halved over the period. Italy and Spain greatly improved their figures, admittedly from a low base.

	Germany	France	UK	Italy	Spain
1990-94	42.0%	16.4%	36.1%	4.2%	1.0%
1995-99	49.2%	16.2%	27.8%	4.9%	1.6%
2000-04	51.1%	16.5%	24.9%	5.4%	1.8%
2005-09	51.7%	17.5%	20.7%	6.8%	3.0%
2010-14	49.3%	20.3%	18.3%	7.9%	4.0%

The third table shows in a different wayt how each country has fared using 1990-94 as a baseline. Each country starts at 100 for that period, and if the number of patent applications goes up by say 20% that changes the country's number to 120.

	Germany	France	UK	Italy	Spain
1995-99	242	205	159	239	333
2000-04	434	358	246	456	649
2005-10	505	437	236	658	1218
2010-14	484	508	209	770	1611

It dramatically shows Spain's rise (from a low base) but caution is needed as it may merely reflect more use of the PCT by Spanish patent attorneys rather than a rise in innovation. This is where looking at applications through the national and European Patent Convention routes may help.

The population size is important, of course. A country may be particularly large or small. The fourth and final table is in some ways the most revealing. For each nation, it shows the population and on the next line the ratio of PCT patent applications for 1990-94, 2000-04 and 2010-14. A figure of 2500 would mean that there was one application per 2500 people. The lower the figure the more innovative the population. Population statistics (for 1990, 2000 and 2010) are taken from the Geohive site.

	Germany	France	UK	Italy	Spain
1990-94	80.4 M	56.8 M	57.2 M	56.8 M	38.8 M
	1 to 5651	1 to 10197	1 to 4683	1 to 39417	1 to 110541
2000-04	83.5 M	59.2 M	58.9 M	56.9 M	40.2 M
	1 to 1350	1 to 2964	1 to 1956	1 to 8642	1 to 17647
2010-14	83.0 M	63.2 M	62.0 M	60.5 M	46.1 M
	1 to 1204	1 to 2230	1 to 2428	1 to 5448	1 to 8149

Country shares in PCT patent publications, 2014 versus 2013

Using data for PCT patent publications (the so-called World Patent) in the free Espacenet database, I have made some calculations comparing countries for 2014 over 2013. I carried out a similar exercise in January 2014. In this post, I have adjusted the 2013 figures as given in Espacenet as apparently the final figures were later revised on the database.

For those new to patents, it is customary to file abroad within 12 months of the domestic filing to gain foreign protection and all applications are published as 18 months from the first "priority" filing. The PCT (the Patent Cooperation Treaty, based in Geneva and run by WIPO) enables a single document to be published rather than each office publishing its own version. Individual countries or regional systems later individually decide whether or not to grant a patent and hence the data merely reflects wanting to patent.

Because of the way the system works, the data reflects filing activity between 18 and 30 months ago.

One advantage of using this international system rather than comparing national figures is that it is a "level playing field", as different countries charge different fees and may permit different kinds of inventions or have different attitudes to novelty.

A second advantage is that regional patent systems, of which the European Patent Convention is the largest, confuse the issue. A European county can apply directly to Europe, or directly to the PCT designating Europe among other patent systems, or could apply to their home country as well. This causes much confusion.

In 2013 there were 192619 published patent specifications in the PCT system, while in 2014 there were 201456. This is a 4.5% increase.

This means that when comparing the numbers each country was responsible for, any gain under 4.5% is in fact a decline in "market share", as total numbers grew by that amount.

The national shares were worked out by asking the database for the number of Paris priority applications from that country (in the form of country codes such as GB for the UK) This is not quite the same as the nationality of the first named applicant (a common measure requiring the use of priced databases), and there will be some oddities, such as a Finnish applicant using a German priority, or a Hong Kong applicant using a UK priority. I expect, however, that most countries' shares will not be substantially different.

However, two problems reduce the actual numbers (and possibly % shares) shares for each country.

It is possible to quote an EP priority to show that the first filing was not national but rather regional: the European Patent Office. In 2014 10358 applications gave that office as the priority and hence could not be allocated to a country. I expect that these were mostly EU nationals. There were 10239 in 2013.

Another is that the Geneva office that handles the PCT filings can itself be quoted as a priority, using the WO code. These numbered 22717 in 2014, and 21243 in 2013.

I am unclear about the impact of these EP and WO priorities, which if added together would reach 33075, third place in the list of countries applying for rights in the PCT (and only just behind Japan).

The table below gives the top ten countries in 2014, and the percentage gain or loss in actual numbers (not in % of market share) over 2013.

Country	2014 publications	2013 publications	% gain or loss
United States	72148	65424	+ 10.2
Japan	34440	35765	- 3.8
China	15616	14399	+ 8.4
Germany	13055	13767	- 5.4
Korea	9720	9612	+ 1.1
France	5745	5830	- 1.4
United Kingdom	5299	5181	+ 2.2
Italy	2388	2388	no change
India	1608	1586	+ 1.3
Spain	1040	1079	- 3.7

Only the USA and China increased their "market share" of all published PCTs. Germany again suffered a drop in numbers, and Japan did only a little better.

Another way to look at the numbers is to examine the three major blocs and see how their percentage of all published PCTs changed from 2013 to 2014. These blocs are the USA, the Far East (Japan, China and Korea) and the EU (Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain). Yes, I know that Taiwan (not a member state of the PCT, hence in theory no priorities) is also in the Far East, and that there are other EU member states. While my choice of five does diminish the EU share, we can at least see how the named countries as a bloc changed.

The US went from 33.9% to 35.8%, plus 1.9%.

The Far East went from 31.0% to 29.6%, minus 1.4%.

The EU went from 14.6% to 13.6%, minus 1.0%.

Of course another way to look at the data is to see how many applications were published per million population. Italy is only a little smaller than France or the UK yet has half the number of applications, for example. China has a population much larger than Korea or the UK yet its numbers do not (yet) reflect that disparity. That suggests that China's numbers have a long way to go in their increase.

It could be argued that the PCT data reflects a country's interest in exporting its innovation, either as actual exports or in licensing agreements. Countries that traditionally manufactured other countries' technology but that are shifting to innovating themselves will do well.

In addition, if the principle that the claimed national priority is mostly the same as the actual country is not correct then the data itself is suspect and hence any conclusions. It is best to treat this data as indicative rather than definitive.

I have posted a follow-up on EU countries, National patent shares in major EU countries.

Country shares in PCT patent publications, 2013 versus 2012

Using data for PCT patent publications (the so-called World Patent) in the free Espacenet database, I have made some calculations comparing countries for 2013 over 2012. For those new to patents, it customary to file abroad within 12 months of the domestic filing to gain foreign protection and all applications are published as 18 months from the first "priority" filing. The PCT enables a single document to be published rather than each office publishing its own version at 12 months.

In 2012 there were 178199 published patent specifications in the PCT system, while in 2013 there were 192620. This is an 8.0% increase.

This means that when comparing the numbers each country was responsible for, any gain under 8% is in fact a decline in "market share", as total numbers grew by that amount.

The national shares were worked out by asking the database for the number of Paris priority applications from that country (in the form of country codes such as GB for the UK) This is not quite the same as the nationality of the first named applicant (a common measure requiring the use of priced databases), and there will be some oddities, such as a Finnish applicant using a German priority, or a Hong Kong applicant using a UK priority. I expect that most countries' shares will not be substantially different, but suspect that Switzerland has probably suffered -- it had only 389 applications in 2013 in my calculations, when I would have expected it to be in the top ten applicants.

However, two related problems reduce the actual shares for each country.

It is possible to quote an EP priority to show that the first filing was not national but rather regional: the European Patent Office. In 2013 10328 applications gave that office as the priority and hence could not be allocated to a country. I expect that these were mostly EU nationals. There were 10409 in 2012.

Another is that the Geneva office that handles the PCT filings can itself be quoted as a priority, using the WO code. These numbered 21205 in 2013, and were 17852 in 2012. While many Western applicants do so, some Chinese applicants at least do so as well.

I am unclear of the impact of these EP and WO priorities, which if added together would reach third place in the list of countries applying for rights in the PCT.

The table below gives the top ten countries in 2013, and the percentage gain or loss in actual numbers (not in % of market share) over 2012.

Country	2013 publications	2012 publications	% gain or loss
United States	65426	58933	+11.0
Japan	35765	33064	+8.1
China	14399	12958	+11.1
Germany	13767	14963	-8.6
Korea	9611	8520	+12.8
France	5829	5679	+2.6
United Kingdom	5181	4992	+3.7
Italy	2387	2221	+7.4
India	1586	1582	No change
Spain	1079	1182	-9.5

Germany's decline in actual numbers surprised me, and may partly be accounted for by the use of EP priorities as the office is in Munich. India's figures hardly moved, while China's small gain in market share may be a signal that as some commentators suggest its years of spectacular growth are coming to an end (in 2011 its figures were 9878, in 2010 just 7051).

If we look at the three major blocs, the USA's numbers made up 33.0% of all published PCT specifications in 2012, and rose slightly to a share of 33.9% in 2013. Numbers for the Far East (Japan, China and Korea) data went up from 54452 in 2012 to 59775, a change from 30.6% to 31.0%. The EU countries in the table (Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain) went from 29037 to 28243, a decline from 16.2% to 14.6%.

Of course another way to look at the data is to see how many applications were published per million population. Italy is only a little smaller than France or the UK yet has half the number of applications, for example. China has a population much larger than Korea or the UK yet its numbers do not (yet) reflect that disparity.

It could be argued that the PCT data reflects a country's interest in exporting its innovation. Countries that traditionally manufactured other countries' technology but that are shifting to innovating themselves will do well. Korea and China are examples.

In addition, if the principle that the claimed national priority is mostly the same as the actual country is not correct then the data itself is suspect and hence any conclusions.

The 2013 PCT Yearly Review gives a great deal of analysis for applications made (not published) in 2012.