OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers
The OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) leads OECD research on the contribution of science, technology and industry to well-being and economic growth. STI Working Papers cover a broad range of topics including definition and measurement of science and technology indicators, global value chains, and research on policies to promote innovation. These technical or analytical working papers are prepared by staff or outside consultants to share early insights and elicit feedback.
- Forthcoming titles
- ISSN: 18151965 (online)
- https://doi.org/10.1787/18151965
Insight into Different Types of Patent Families
What are patent families? What is the impact of adopting one definition or another? Are some
definitions of patent families better suited than others for certain uses in statistical and economic analysis?
The aim of this paper is to provide some answers to these questions, compare the methodologies and
outcomes of the most commonly used patent family definitions and provide guidance on how to build
families based on raw data from the EPO Worldwide Patent Statistics database (PATSTAT). One of our
findings, based on a characterisation of family structures, is that extended patent families and other family
definitions, such as equivalents and single-priority families, provide identical outcomes for about 75% of
the families with earliest priority dates in the 1990s because they have quite simple structures. Differences
across definitions only become apparent for the families with more complex structures, which represent
25% of the families of that period.
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