Using Patents Data to Map Technical Change in Health-Related Areas

Frank Lichtenberg and Suchin Virabhak
Additional contact information
Suchin Virabhak: Columbia University

No 2002/16, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: This document reports findings regarding the use of patents data for understanding various dimensions of technical change in health-related areas. Reported counts are based on “Triadic Patent Families”, that is sets of patents covering a single invention, filed altogether in Europe, Japan and the US. There were nearly 40 000 health-related patent families filed in the 1988-1995 period, which is 16% of the total number of patent families, with a majority (58%) of Medical Preparations (mainly drugs), followed by Surgery (13%), Media Devices (10%) and Prostheses (9%). The share of health patent inventors residing in the US is 56% (it is 35% in all families), EU is 27% (32% in all families), and Japan is 11% (28% in all families). The share of the US has been increasing between 1988 and 1995, whereas the share of Japan was shrinking. Internationalisation of research (measured by the share of patents with inventors residing in two or more different countries) has been growing steadily ... Ce document étudie les enseignements qui peuvent être tirés de l’utilisation des brevets pour comprendre différentes dimensions du progrès technique dans les domaines liés à la santé. Les comptages sont bases sur les “familles triadiques de brevets”, qui sont des ensembles de brevets couvrant une même invention, demandés à la fois en Europe, aux États-Unis et au Japon. Il y a eu environ 40 000 familles de brevets demandées au cours de la période 1988-1995, soit 16% du nombre total de familles, avec une majorité (58%) de Préparations médicales (principalement des médicaments), suivies par la Chirurgie (13%), les Dispositifs d’introduction (10%) et les Prothèses (9%). La part des inventeurs de brevets liés à la santé résidant aux États-Unis est de 56% (elle est de 35% pour l’ensemble des familles), la part de l’UE est de 27% (32% pour l’ensemble des familles), et celle du Japon est de 11% (28% pour l’ensemble des familles). La part des États-Unis s’est accrue entre 1988 et ...

Date: 2002-01-16
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1787/522485718871 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:stiaaa:2002/16-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().