UNIVERSITÀ DI PISA
Dipartimento di Informatica
Corso di Laurea Magistrale in
Data Science and Business Informatics
TESI DI LAUREA MAGISTRALE
COMMUNITY DETECTION IN
PATENT CO-CITATION NETWORK
Relatore
Prof. Roberto
TRASARTI
Candidato
Alessandro
MACAGNO
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ABSTRACT
Patents have always been closely related to innovation in the world. The number of applications and grants keeps growing and patents are more and more a fundamental part of the competitive advantage for a business.
It is important and necessary to categorize and organize this amount of data to let interested people find what they need. In more than 300 years of patents several classification methods have been used, but they always require a domain expert who understands and proposes a class.
Our goal is to use patent co-citation network to automatically classify a patent in the correct categories, by using graphs and community discovery algorithms like Louvain and Leiden.
The built graph has more than 6 million nodes and over 70 million edges, from PatentsView.org dataset. It was built using igraph library after a deep cleaning of the original dataset. The patents span from 1976 to 2018.
Four models have been built: a feasibility study with all the graph, a train test split of the nodes, a based split adding to the existing graph and a
time-based split that eliminates the eldest edges.
The results are promising, with about 60% of accuracy and recall at section level, using ONLY the co-citation network, and nothing else. We can’t infer that one the four proposed model is far better than the others.
Our model can be improved using text-based models on string attributes like title and description, or using unsupervised learning to develop a new classification model.
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A Gabriele e Alice, fonti giornaliere di motivazione. Ma anche a Moritz Erhardt, fonte giornaliera di riflessione
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ... 2
INTRODUCTION AND GOALS ... 7
INTRODUCTION TO THE PATENT WORLD ... 9
PATENT ... 9 WHAT IS A PATENT? ...10 BENEFITS...10 HISTORY ...12 BEFORE VENICE ...12 MODERN SYSTEMS ...13 CONSOLIDATION ...15 HISTORY OF US PATENT LAW ...16 YEAR 2017: STATS...21 KEY NUMBERS ...21 REPORT HIGHLIGHTS ...21 LAW...33 OWNERSHIP...35 GOVERNING LAWS...35 ACTORS ...37 INVENTOR ...37 APPLICANT ...37 ASSIGNEE ...37 ATTORNEY ...37 EXAMINER ...38 APPLICATION ...39 NATIONAL APPLICATIONS ...40 REGIONAL APPLICATIONS ...40
INTERNATIONAL APPLICATIONS (UNDER THE PATENT COOPERATION TREATY) ...40
VALUATION ...41
PATENTABILITY ...43
CLAIM ...43
VISUALIZATION ...44
CLASSIFICATION ...44
INTERNATIONAL PATENT CLASSIFICATION (IPC) ...45
COOPERATIVE PATENT CLASSIFICATION (CPC) ...46
ECONOMIC IMPACT ...47
MACROECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE...48
MICROECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE...48
PROBLEMS TO SOLVE AND GOALS OF THIS THESIS ...49
CURRENT WORKS AND APPROACHES ...50
DATA CLEANING AND UNDERSTANDING ...53
INTRODUCTION.HOW TO MODEL PATENT WORLD ...53
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CLASSIFICATION ...55
DATASETS ...55
METHODS &SOURCES ...57
ASSIGNEE DISAMBIGUATION...57
LOCATION DISAMBIGUATION ...57
INVENTOR DISAMBIGUATION ...57
PATENT CLASSES AND TECHNOLOGIES ...58
GOVERNMENT INTEREST ...58
PATENTS VIEW ERSCHEMA AND DATA DICTIONARY ...58
DATA UNDERSTANDING. ...66 DATA PREPARATION ...67 PATENT CLASSIFICATION ...68 PATENTS TABLE ...71 CITATIONS...73 GRAPH CREATION ...77
DATA EXPLORATION AND STATISTICS ...79
CLASSIFICATION DISTRIBUTION ...79
SUBSECTIONS DISTRIBUTION ...82
DATE DISTRIBUTION ...87
GRAPH ...89
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS ...92
CONCLUSION ...93
MODELLING ...94
THEORY ...94
COMPONENT AND COMMUNITIES ...94
EVALUATION ...96
MULTI CLASS CLASSIFICATION...98
FIRST PHASE: WHOLE GRAPH WITH NETWORKX ...99
DATA FRAME RECAP...99
MODELLING ...100
ASSIGNMENT ...101
EVALUATION ...108
FIRST PHASE BIS: WHOLE GRAPH WITH IGRAPH AND LEIDEN ...110
TRAIN AND TEST SPLIT ...121
SECOND PHASE: TIME OF THE GRANT ...127
SEPARATED RANGES...127 RESULTS...134 FINAL REPORT ...149 PROPORTIONAL RANGES ...151 FINAL REPORT ...167 UNDIRECTED GRAPH...168
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS ...169
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS ...170
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS ...173
6 OTHER MODELS ...173 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...175 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...176 CODE REFERENCES ...177 FIGURE REFERENCES ...178 TABLE REFERENCES...179
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INTRODUCTION AND GOALS
In the past 300 years, since when the first patent was granted, there has been one or more domain experts who studied and decided whether to grant the patent or not. These domain experts have a lot of work to do, very time
consuming. At the end they also have to classify, often according to multiple classifications, the granted patent.
There is also a problem about choosing the right domain expert. What if we could forecast with some degree of accuracy the patents’ categories? This could help them to better select the domain expert and help him to classify better, reduce his work and speed up the whole process. In fact, one of the biggest problems in patent processes is the speed: many people avoid, especially in startup world, to ask for a patent grant because of the required amount of time.
How can we predict the correct classification for a given patent? There are many ways, we could setup as many algorithms and methods as we can think, evaluate them and choose the best. We chose to focus on citations: if one patent cites another patent they have for sure something in common. If many patents cite one patent this last patent has great importance in history. When we look at the graph of the citations we can use the communities to understand the clusters, and evaluate what they have in common.
This thesis will present a feasibility study, using a subset of the whole patents, from PatentsView.org datasets. These patents span from 1976 to May 2018. Our goal is to automatically forecast the section of a patent by using the co citation graph.
We have developed and analyzed four different models:
- The first model takes the whole graph, without splitting patents in train and test. We found communities and used the mode of the sections to forecast a community section. Then we evaluated the performances: 56% of the sections were correct, using ONLY the graph, no title, no description and further
analysis, with a max of 71% for section A and min of 32% for section E - The second model splits the patents into two different sets, training and
testing. Only the training set contributes to the mode, while we used the test set to evaluate performances. The results were exactly same as the previous model: 56% of accuracy. This means that the communities are very strong, and the majority remains the same, despite the removal of 25% of the patents
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- The third model splits the patents in ranges, ten years long, to simulate what would have happened if the model had always been on the market. For example in the first range 1976 – 1986 we take the first 8 years as training and the last two years as testing. The graph was incremental, so we added nodes and edges to the existing graph. The results were a bit better than the two previous attempts: the average precision is 60%, with max of 81% of a section in a range. We can see a progressive deterioration of the results.
- The last model’s goal was to understand whether the edges built many years before were still valid and contributing, or it would have been better to remove them. So we used ranges, but with overlaps, and removing the first years, so that the communities could evolve. For example, the second range is from 1982 to 1996, so the patents granted from 1976 to 1981 were not in the graph anymore. The results were similar to the previous section, but with less
deterioration, with high point of 86% of accuracy.
We cannot say that there is a model far better than all the others, all of them have advantages and disadvantages. We can say for sure that co-citation network is a good way to analyze and forecast the categories, especially if these models are joined with text analytics models, for example on text and description, or other models.
All the code has been released publicly accessible via GitHub at this address: https://github.com/Alagaesia93/patent_co_citation_network.
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INTRODUCTION TO THE PATENT WORLD
This chapter will present the patent world: all the theory behind this long-lasting world, its classifications, our goals and all the literature found online.
P
ATENT
A patent is a form of intellectual property. A patent gives its owner the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, and
importing an invention for a limited period of time, usually twenty years.
(Wikipedia, 2018)
The patent rights are granted in exchange for an enabling public disclosure of the invention. In most countries patent rights fall under civil law and the patent holder needs to sue someone infringing the patent in order to enforce their rights. In some industries patents are an essential form of competitive advantage; in others they are irrelevant.
The procedure for granting patents, requirements placed on the patentee, and the extent of the exclusive rights vary widely between countries according to national laws and international agreements. Typically, however, a granted patent application must include one or more claims that define the invention.
A patent may include many claims, each of which defines a specific property right. These claims must meet relevant patentability requirements, such as novelty, usefulness, and non-obviousness.
Under the World Trade Organization's (WTO) TRIPS Agreement, patents should be available in WTO member states for any invention, in all fields of
technology, provided they are new, involve an inventive step, and are capable of industrial application.
TRIPS also provides that the term of protection available should be a minimum of twenty years. The figure shows an example of a US patent.
10 Figure 1 - US Patent
WHAT IS A PATENT?
The word patent originates from the Latin “patere”, which means "to lay open" (i.e., to make available for public inspection). It is a shortened version of the term letters patent, which was an open document or instrument issued by a
monarch or government granting exclusive rights to a person, predating the modern patent system. Similar grants included land patents, which were land grants by early state governments in the USA, and printing patents, a precursor of modern copyright.
In modern usage, the term patent usually refers to the right granted to anyone who invents something new, useful and non-obvious. Some other types of intellectual property rights are also called patents in some jurisdictions: industrial design rights are called design patents in the US, plant breeders' rights are sometimes called plant patents, and utility models and Gebrauchsmuster are sometimes called petty patents or innovation patents.
Particular species of patents for inventions include biological patents, business method patents, chemical patents and software patents.
BENEFITS
Primary incentives embodied in the patent system include incentives to invent in the first place; to disclose the invention once made; to invest the sums
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necessary to experiment, produce and market the invention; and to design around and improve upon earlier patents.
Patents provide incentives for economically efficient research and
development (R&D). A study conducted annually by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) shows that the 2,000 largest global companies invested more than 430 billion euros in 2008 in their R&D departments. If the investments can be considered as inputs of R&D, real products and patents are the outputs.
Based on these groups, a project named Corporate Invention Board, had measured and analyzed the patent portfolios to produce an original picture of their technological profiles. Supporters of patents argue that without patent protection, R&D spending would be significantly less or eliminated altogether, limiting the possibility of technological advances or breakthroughs.
Corporations would be much more conservative about the R&D investments they made, as third parties would be free to exploit any
developments. This second justification is closely related to the basic ideas underlying traditional property rights. Specifically, "[t]he patent internalizes the externality by giving the [inventor] a property right over its invention."
In accordance with the original definition of the term "patent", patents are intended to facilitate and encourage disclosure of innovations into the public domain for the common good. Thus, patenting can be viewed as contributing to open hardware after an embargo period (usually of 20 years). If inventors did not have the legal protection of patents, in many cases, they might prefer or tend to keep their inventions secret (e.g. keep trade secrets).
Awarding patents generally makes the details of new technology publicly available, for exploitation by anyone after the patent expires, or for further improvement by other inventors.
Furthermore, when a patent's term has expired, the public record ensures that the patentee's invention is not lost to humanity.
One effect of modern patent usage is that a small-time inventor, who can afford both the patenting process and the defense of the patent, can use the exclusive right status to become a licensor. This allows the inventor to accumulate capital from licensing the invention and may allow innovation to occur because he or she may choose not to manage a manufacturing buildup for the invention. Thus,
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the inventor's time and energy can be spent on pure innovation, allowing others to concentrate on manufacturability.
Another effect of modern patent usage is to both enable and incentivize competitors to design around (or to "invent around" according to R S Praveen Raj) the patented invention.
This may promote healthy competition among manufacturers, resulting in gradual improvements of the technology base. This may help augment national economies and confer better living standards to the citizens. The 1970 Indian Patent Act allowed the Indian pharmaceutical industry to develop local
technological capabilities in this industry. This act coincided with the
transformation of India from a bulk importer of pharmaceutical drugs to a leading exporter. The rapid evolution of Indian pharmaceutical industry since the mid-1970s highlights the fact that the design of the patent act was instrumental in building local capabilities even in a developing country like India.
H
ISTORY
The history of patents and patent law is generally considered to have started with the Venetian Statute of 1474. The Venetian Patent Statute of March 19, 1474, established in the Republic of Venice the first statutory patent system in Europe, and may be deemed to be the earliest codified patent system in the world. The Statute is written in old Venetian dialect. It provided that patents might be granted for "any new and ingenious device, not previously made", provided it was useful. By and large, these principles still remain the basic principles of patent law.
Figure 2 - The Venetian Patent Statute, issued by the Senate of Venice in 1474, and one of the earliest patent systems in the world.
BEFORE VENICE
There is some evidence that some form of patent rights was recognized in Ancient Greece. In 500 BCE, in the Greek city of Sybaris (located in what is now southern Italy), "encouragement was held out to all who should discover any new
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refinement in luxury, the profits arising from which were secured to the inventor by patent for the space of a year." Athenaeus, writing in the third century CE, cites Phylarchus in saying that in Sybaris exclusive rights were granted for one year to creators of unique culinary dishes.
In England, grants in the form of letters patent were issued by the sovereign to inventors who petitioned and were approved: a grant of 1331 to John Kempe and his Company is the earliest authenticated instance of a royal grant made with the avowed purpose of instructing the English in a new industry. These letters patent provided the recipient with a monopoly to produce particular goods or provide particular services. Another early example of such letters patent was a grant by Henry VI in 1449 to John of Utynam, a Flemish man, for a twenty-year monopoly for his invention.
The first Italian patent was awarded by the Republic of Florence in 1421. The Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi received a three-year patent for a barge with hoisting gear, that carried marble along the Arno River in 1421.
MODERN SYSTEMS
Patents were systematically granted in Venice as of 1450, where they issued a decree by which new and inventive devices had to be communicated to the Republic in order to obtain legal protection against potential infringers. The period of protection was 10 years. These were mostly in the field of glass making. As Venetians emigrated, they sought similar patent protection in their new homes. This led to the diffusion of patent systems to other countries.
King Henry II of France introduced the concept of publishing the
description of an invention in a patent in 1555. The first patent "specification" was to inventor Abel Foullon for "Usaige & Description de l'holmetre", (a type of rangefinder.) Publication was delayed until after the patent expired in 1561. Patents were granted by the monarchy and by other institutions like the "Maison du Roi" and the Parliament of Paris. The novelty of the invention was examined by the French Academy of Sciences. Digests were published irregularly starting in 1729 with delays of up to 60 years. Examinations were generally done in secret with no requirement to publish a description of the invention. Actual use of the invention was deemed adequate disclosure to the public.
The English patent system evolved from its early medieval origins into the first modern patent system that recognized intellectual property in order to
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stimulate invention; this was the crucial legal foundation upon which the Industrial Revolution could emerge and flourish.
By the 16th century, the English Crown would habitually grant letters patent for monopolies to favored persons (or people who were prepared to pay for them). Blackstone also explains how "letters patent" (Latin literae patentes, "letters that lie open") were so called because the seal hung from the foot of the
document: they were addressed "To all to whom these presents shall come" and could be read without breaking the seal, as opposed to "letters close", addressed to a particular person who had to break the seal to read them.
This power was used to raise money for the Crown, and was widely abused, as the Crown granted patents in respect of all sorts of common goods (salt, for example). Consequently, the Court began to limit the circumstances in which they could be granted. After public outcry, James I of England was forced to revoke all existing monopolies and declare that they were only to be used for "projects of new invention". This was incorporated into the Statute of Monopolies in which Parliament restricted the Crown's power explicitly so that the King could only issue letters patent to the inventors or introducers of original inventions for a fixed number of years. It also voided all existing monopolies and dispensations with the exception of:
the sole working or making of any manner of new manufactures within this realm to the true and first inventor and inventors of such manufactures which others at the time of making
such letters patent and grants shall not use
The Statute became the foundation for later developments in patent law in England and elsewhere.
Figure 3 - James Puckle's 1718 early autocannon was one of the first inventions required to provide a specification for a patent.
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Important developments in patent law emerged during the 18th century through a slow process of judicial interpretation of the law. During the reign of Queen Anne, patent applications were required to supply a complete specification of the principles of operation of the invention for public access. Patenting
medicines was particularly popular in the mid-eighteenth century and then declined. Legal battles around the 1796 patent taken out by James Watt for his steam engine, established the principles that patents could be issued for
improvements of an already existing machine and that ideas or principles without specific practical application could also legally be patented.
This legal system became the foundation for patent law in countries with a common law heritage, including the United States, New Zealand and Australia. In the Thirteen Colonies, inventors could obtain patents through petition to a given colony's legislature. In 1641, Samuel Winslow was granted the first patent in North America by the Massachusetts General Court for a new process for making salt.
Towards the end of the 18th century, and influenced by the philosophy of John Locke, the granting of patents began to be viewed as a form of intellectual property right, rather than simply the obtaining of economic privilege. A negative aspect of the patent law also emerged in this period: the abuse of patent privilege to monopolize the market and prevent improvement from other inventors.
CONSOLIDATION
The modern French patent system was created during the Revolution in 1791. Patents were granted without examination since inventor's right was
considered as a natural one. Patent costs were very high (from 500 to 1500 francs). Importation patents protected new devices coming from foreign countries. The patent law was revised in 1844 - patent cost was lowered and importation patents were abolished.
The Patent and Copyright Clause of the United States Constitution was proposed in 1787 by James Madison and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. In
Federalist No. 43, Madison wrote, "The utility of the clause will scarcely be questioned. The copyright of authors has been solemnly adjudged, in Great Britain, to be a right of common law. The right to useful inventions seems with equal reason to belong to the inventors. The public good fully coincides in both cases with the claims of the individuals."
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Figure 4 - First ever U.S. patent, granted to Samuel Hopkins in 1790.
The first Patent Act of the U.S. Congress was passed on April 10, 1790, titled "An Act to promote the progress of useful Arts." The first patent was granted on July 31, 1790 to Samuel Hopkins for a method of producing potash (potassium carbonate).
The earliest law required that a working model of each invention be
submitted with the application. Patent applications were examined to determine if an inventor was entitled to the grant of a patent. The requirement for a working model was eventually dropped. In 1793, the law was revised so that patents were granted automatically upon submission of the description. A separate Patent Office was created in 1802.
The patent laws were again revised in 1836, and the examination of patent applications was reinstituted. In 1870 Congress passed a law which mainly
reorganized and reenacted existing law, but also made some important changes, such as giving the commissioner of patents the authority to draft rules and
regulations for the Patent Office.
HISTORY OF US PATENT LAW
Case-specific acts
In America in the early colonial period, there were no general laws
providing for the issuing of patents. However, people who invented new products could appeal to the colonial governments, which could grant them the exclusive commercial right to the products. The earliest of such rights granted in the colonies was in the state of Massachusetts in 1641. The Massachusetts General Court gave Samuel Winslow an exclusive right to utilize a new process of making salt for 10 years. The case is unofficially known of as the first "patent" in America.
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Other similar exclusive commercial rights were granted in other colonies and later states of the United States of America. These acts were all private acts of the colony or state governments to grant commercial privileges to specific people, before general laws regarding the issuing of patents were passed in each state. This custom of using private acts to grant patents is often said to have come from the early in England, particularly the English Statute of Monopolies of 1624.
State-level general patent laws
Near the end of the 18th century, states started to pass general patent laws replacing the case-specific acts. These state-level general acts set up standardized procedures for patent applications, an examination process, and general terms for patent holdings. The first state to pass a general patent law was South Carolina, in 1784.
This first general patent act of the state of South Carolina is titled "An Act for the Encouragement of Arts and Sciences." Although most of its terms concerned the protection of copyrights, it also included the following provision: "The
Inventors of useful machines shall have a like exclusive privilege of making or vending their machines for the like term of 14 years, under the same privileges and restrictions hereby granted to, and imposed on, the authors of books."
Many other states followed suit in passing general patent acts, most using a 14-year term, resembling English practices. However, without a federal system, patentees who wanted to use their invention in more than one state had to apply separately for patents in each state, which was expensive and time-consuming. A standardized national patent law was needed for more efficient patent grating process.
United States federal patent laws
The Constitution of the United States, first adopted on September 17, 1787, had a provision for protecting intellectual properties. The provision is found in Article I, Section 8:
"The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
The Patent Act of 1790 was the first federal patent statute of the United States. It was titled "An Act to promote the Progress of Useful Arts." The statute was concise, including only seven sections. Similar to the state statutes, the federal
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statute allowed the patentees a 14-year term of exclusive right to use their
inventions, without the possibility of an extension. This was unsatisfactory to many inventors who wanted extended protection time for their inventions. They argued that 14 years were not enough, given that it often took several years already for their inventions to be commercialized. Another important point of the Patent Act of 1790 was that it did not allow foreigners to obtain patents in the United States.
The power to grant or refuse patents was given exclusively to three people: The Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and the Attorney General. Patent applicants needed the consent of at least two of the three officials to obtain a patent. The act provided that an examination process be carried out by the same three officials to decide whether the inventions were "not before known or used" and "sufficiently useful and important". This examination process was soon criticized as taking unreasonably too much time. At the same time, the people responsible for examining and granting patents had other important duties to attend to and could not carry out the process quickly. It took several months for a patent to be examined.
Patent Act of 1793
In 1793, the 1790 act was repealed and replaced by the Patent Act of 1793. The act was notable for its definition of the subjects of patents which remains unchanged until now: "any new and useful art, machine, manufacture or
composition of matter and any new and useful improvement on any art, machine, manufacture or composition of matter". In this later act, the patent application process was much simpler than in the Patent Act of 1790. People who sought patents only needed to petition the Secretary of State and then it was the duty of the Secretary of State to acquire examination from the Attorney General. The examination process was simplified by dropping the clause that patented inventions needed to be "sufficiently useful and important". It was enough that inventions were somehow useful, even if the usefulness was insignificant, and "not before known or used" to be granted patents.
Obtaining patents became much easier during the period after the Patent Act of 1793 and the next federal Patent Act passed in 1836. Between the Patent Act of 1790 and that of 1793, only 57 patents were granted, but by July 2, 1836, a total of 10,000 patents had been granted.
This however, came at an expense of the quality of patents granted. Thomas Jefferson, who was Secretary of State at the time, realized the need to employ experts into the patent examination process. He hired personnel from the
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University of Pennsylvania to help with determining the novelty and usefulness of the inventions. When more and more patent applications came in, the patent office, which was still loosely organized, was unable to adequately examine every application.
In his book "Science in the Federal Government: A History of Policies and Activities" Dupree commented: "The patent office languished, but inventors were ever more active. “Patents were granted to objects and procedures which were not original inventions or not useful. As this ineffective situation went on, more
lawsuits were filed over patent validity and infringement. Patentees were dissatisfied, and courts were overwhelmed with patent lawsuits.
Patent Act of 1836
In 1836, another federal Patent Act was passed to reform problems in the previous acts. The Patent Act of 1836 was significant in a number of ways. Firstly, the act created an official Patent Office, which was still a part of the Department of State, but no longer under the duties of the Secretary of State. It freed the Secretary of State from the enormous duty of granting patents, when he had many other significant tasks to tend to. Instead of the Secretary of State, the
Commissioner of Patents chaired the Patent Office.
This restructuring of the patent office allowed for more efficient process of patent applications. Secondly, the act prevented the applications of already patented inventions by requiring information on newly granted patents to be made publicly accessible at libraries throughout the country. Anyone could consult this information to check whether his or her invention was truly original before filing for a patent. This greatly improved the quality of patents granted. Thirdly, the act resolved a long-standing dissatisfaction on patent terms by allowing, for the first time, a possible extension of 7 years of protection in addition to the original 14-year term. With the permission of the Commissioner of Patent, upon
appropriate reasons, patentees could appeal to have their protection extended. And lastly, it finally removed the US nationality and residency requirements, making it possible for foreigners to file for US patents.
On July 13, 1836, Patent Number 1 was granted. In 1836, The Patent Office also went back and renumbered all previous patents with a suffix "X". Prior to this, patents were listed by names and dates and not numbers. After the
renumbering, the very first US Patent became Patent 1X. On December 15 of the same year, a fire demolished the Patent Office, and only 2,845 patents were recovered. This resulted in a law that required all patent applications to be
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submitted in doubles. This law for double copies of patent applications was dropped in 1870 when the Patent Office started printing.
The Sherman Antitrust Act
The 1890 depression resulted in an unfavorable view of patents. The
depression was marked by a strained economy in which patents were perceived as a method of promoting monopolies. This negative attitude towards patents led to the inception of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
In 1925, the Patent Office was transferred again from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Commerce, where it is today.
Modern patent laws
In 1952, the basic structure of the modern Patent Law was laid out with the Patent Act of 1952. In this amendment, an inventor had to describe not only his invention but also the basis for its infringement. Furthermore, an invention needed to be new and useful, as well as "non- obvious" to be granted a patent. This
amendment, which required patents to be non-obvious, was implemented to keep individuals from taking ownership or taking away from the base pool of knowledge in a particular field.
In the 1980 and '90s the atmosphere once again became pro-patent. The patent was seen as not only a business need but also a means to protect inventors. Patents became important, and they began to signify the importance of
technology, invention, and discovery to the US.
In 1982, the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals was abolished, and patent cases were heard in the newly established Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit observed patents favorably and also started to provide more protection to their owners.
In 2011, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) enacted the most
significant change to the U.S. patent system since 1952. After decades of debate in the U.S. comparing and contrasting the pros and cons of "first-to-invent" versus "first-to-file" systems, the AIA switched the U.S. patent system from "first to invent" to "first inventor to file". The U.S. had been the last remaining country still using a first-to-invent system. The AIA reforms eliminate interference proceedings and develop post-grant opposition. Its central provisions went into effect March 16, 2013 for patent applications filed that day or afterwards.
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The only President of the United States to hold a patent was Abraham Lincoln for a "device to buoy vessels over shoals"; it consisted of a set of retractable floats mounted on the sides of riverboats.
Y
EAR
2017:
STATS
Against the backdrop of solid economic growth worldwide, global intellectual property (IP) filing activity set new records in 2017. Patent filings around the world reached 3.17 million, representing a 5.8% growth on 2016 figures.
China remained the main driver of global growth in IP filings. From already high levels, patent filings in China grew by 14.2% and trademark filing activity in China by 55.2%. These high growth rates propelled China’s shares of global patent filings and trademarks filing activity to reach 43.6% and 46.3%, respectively. Japan (+24.2%) and the United States of America (+12.6%) also saw strong growth in trademark filing activity. However, both of those countries recorded almost no growth in patent filings. The Republic of Korea saw a decline in filing activity for patents and trademarks for the second consecutive year. Other notable trends include large increases in trademark filing activity in the Islamic Republic of Iran (+87.9%), the United Kingdom (+24.1%) and Canada (+19.5%). With regard to industrial design filing activity, the United Kingdom (+92.1%), Spain (+23.5%) and Switzerland (+17.9%) saw double-digit growth in 2017.
KEY NUMBERS
2016 2017 Growth rate Share of
world total APPLICATIONS WORLDWIDE 3 125 100 3 168 900 CHINA 1 338 503 1 381 594 3,22% 43,6% USA 605 571 606 956 0,2% 19,2% JAPAN 318 381 318 479 0,03% 10,1%
Table 1 - Patent numbers in 2017
REPORT HIGHLIGHTS
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Applicants around the world filled almost 3.17 million patent applications in 2017 – a record number. Applications grew by an estimated 5.8% on 2016. It is important to note that the intellectual property (IP) office of China revised its method of compiling patent applications statistics in 2017. Prior to 2017, it included all applications received; however, starting
The long-term trend shows that patent applications worldwide have grown every year since 2003, with the exception of 2009 when they decreased by 3.8% due to the financial crisis.
Figure 5 - Number of applications per year
The National Intellectual Property Administration of the People’s Republic of China received 1.38 million patent applications in 2017, which is more than double the number received by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which totaled 606,956. The Japan Patent Office was ranked third, with 318,479 applications. It was followed by the Korean Intellectual Property Office with 204,775 applications and the European Patent Office (EPO) with 166,585. Together, these top five offices accounted for 84.5% of the world total in 2017, which is much higher than their combined 2007 share (75.2%). China’s share of the world total increased considerably between 2007 and 2017, while that of the remaining four offices declined over the same period.
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The list of top 10 offices in 2017 is identical to the 2016 list. The ranking of top offices is relatively stable – any change in ranking has been gradual over the past 15 years, with the exception of the rapid rise of China.
Looking beyond the top 10 offices to the top 20 list, 12 offices were located in high-income, six in upper income and two in lower middle-income countries.
In terms of geographical distribution, nine offices were located in Asia, six in Europe, two each in North America and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and one in Oceania. South Africa is the highest ranked African office, in 22nd place.
Of the top 20 offices, 11 received a greater number of applications in 2017 than in 2016, while nine received fewer. China (+14.2%) and Turkey (+24.9%) are the only two offices to have experienced double-digit growth. Note that
China’s growth rate was reported by the IP office of China and is based on the new method of counting patent applications recently implemented by that office. China has experienced double-digit growth each year since 2010.
Turkey has reported double-digit growth for the past three years and, as a result, its ranking has moved from 25th position in 2014 to 20th in 2017. The increases in number of applications filed in China and Turkey were both driven mainly by growth in resident applications.
Of the nine offices among the top 20 that received fewer applications in 2017 than in 2016, the Russian Federation (−11.3%); Brazil (−8.4%); China, Hong Kong SAR (−5.6%); and Indonesia (−3.5%) reported the most substantial declines. Applications in Brazil fell for a fourth consecutive year, while the Russian
Federation reported a second successive year of declining numbers of
applications. A decline in resident applications was the primary reason for the decrease in total applications for the Russian Federation in 2017, whereas a decline in non-resident applications was the main driver for Brazil; China, Hong Kong SAR; and Indonesia.
Among the offices of low- and middle-income countries, Ecuador (+11.5%), Romania (+10.8%) and Colombia (+7.7%) recorded particularly rapid growth in 2017.
Growth in non-resident applications was the main driver of total growth in Colombia and Ecuador, while resident applications were the main driver in
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Romania. Two of the three regional offices – the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI), the African
Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) and the Eurasian Patent Organization (EAPO) – have seen applications return to growth following a fall during two successive years. Applications filed at ARIPO grew by 7.2% in 2017, while OAPI reported a 2.6% increase. In contrast, EAPO saw three consecutive years of declines in filings. At most offices of low- and middle-income countries, the bulk of applications are filed by nonresidents.
As a result, overall increases or decreases in applications received by these offices are determined mainly by the filing behavior of non-resident applicants.
Offices located in Asia received around 2.1 million applications in 2017, representing 65.1% of the world total. The combined total of Europe and North America was just below the 1 million mark. Asia’s share of all applications filed worldwide increased from 49.7% in 2007 to 65.1% in 2017, primarily driven by strong growth in filings in China, which accounted for around two-thirds of all applications filed in the region. Offices in North America accounted for just over one-fifth of the 2017 world total, while those in Europe accounted for just over one-tenth. The combined share for Africa, LAC and Oceania was 3.4%. The shares of all world regions except Asia have gradually declined over the past decade due to the rapid growth in applications filed in China.
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Time distribution: from 1883 to 1963, the patent office of the U.S. was the leading office for world filings. Application numbers in Japan and the U.S. were stable until the early 1970s, when Japan began to see rapid growth – a pattern also observed for the U.S. from the 1980s onward. Among the top five offices, Japan surpassed the U.S. in 1968 and maintained the top position until 2005. Since the early 2000s, however, the number of applications filed in Japan has followed a downward trend. Both the EPO and the Republic of Korea have seen increases each year since the early 1980s, as has China since 1995. China surpassed the EPO and the Republic of Korea in 2005, Japan in 2010 and the U.S. in 2011 – and it now
receives the largest number of applications worldwide. There has been a gradual upward trend in the combined share of the top five offices in the world total – from 75.2% in 2007 to 84.5% in 2017.
Figure 7 - Trend in patent applications for the top five offices, 1883 - 2017 Applications received by offices from resident and non-resident
applicants are referred to as office data, whereas applications filed by applicants at a national/ regional office (resident applications) or at foreign offices
(applications abroad) are referred to as origin data. Here, patent statistics based on the origin of residence of the first named applicant are reported in order to complement the picture of patent activity worldwide. Applicants from China filed around 1.31 million equivalent patent applications in 2017, which is more than the combined total for applicants from Japan (460,660), the Republic of Korea
(226,568) and the U.S. (524,835).
Those four origins, plus Germany (176,235), accounted for the bulk of the global total (see map 1.4). China has been the largest source of patent
applications since 2012, when it surpassed Japan. However, it should be noted that only 4.6% of all applications from China are filed abroad, while 95.4% are filed
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in China. In contrast, filings abroad constitute 43.5% of total applications from Japan and 44% from the U.S.
Twelve of the top 20 origins are located in Europe. Their combined total (518,480 equivalent applications) is slightly lower than that from U.S.-based applicants. All top 20 origins, with the exception of China, India, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation, are high-income countries. Among the top 20 origins, Denmark (+9.6%), India (+8.3%) and Belgium (+6.1%) recorded the fastest growth in 2017.
For both Belgium and Denmark, growth in applications abroad was the main source of overall growth, while for India growth in resident applications was the main driver of overall growth.
Among the large middle-income origins, Indonesia (+101%) and Turkey (+33%) saw the fastest growth in filings in 2017. Malaysia (+9.4%), South Africa (+8.3%), Mexico (+5%) and Brazil (+4%) also saw relatively strong growth in 2017. The overall growth in Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey was due to
increases in resident applications, while growth in equivalent applications abroad drove overall growth in Malaysia and Mexico.
Filing abroad reflects the globalization of IP protection and a desire to commercialize technology in foreign markets. The costs of filing abroad can be substantial, so the patents for which applicants seek international protection are likely to confer higher values. Among the top 20 origins, applications filed abroad made up for more than three-quarters of the totals for Belgium (77%), Canada (83.1%), Israel (90.7%), the Netherlands (75.3%), Sweden (75.3%) and Switzerland (80.6%).
However, in absolute numbers, the U.S. had the most, with 230,931, followed by Japan (200,370), Germany (102,890), the Republic of Korea (67,484) and China (60,310). China, the Republic of Korea and the U.S. saw growth in applications abroad over the past five years, whereas the trend in applications abroad for Germany and Japan was stable over the same period. High-income origins, such as Ireland (85.2%), Liechtenstein (69%), Luxembourg (79.3%), Norway (71.7%) and Singapore (76.8%), have a high proportion of applications abroad as a share of total applications.
U.S. applicants accounted for more than half of all non-resident
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(75.3%). Applicants residing in Japan accounted for at least a third of all non-resident applications filed in Germany (36.5%),
Indonesia (34.2%), the Republic of Korea (32.9%) and Thailand (49%). German applicants accounted for a high share in France (24.7%) and Italy (31%), while applicants from China accounted for a high proportion of non-resident filings in Luxembourg (66.8%) and the United Kingdom (U.K.) (12.3%).
Figure 8 - Patent map
Patent applications for unique inventions grew by 9.7% to reach 1.56 million worldwide
Patent applicants traditionally file at their national offices and then
subsequently abroad. This means that some inventions are recorded more than once. To take this into account, WIPO has developed indicators for patent families, and the trend in patent families mirrors that for patent applications. The total number of patent families worldwide increased from around 780,000 in 2001 to around 1.56 million in 2015. Applicants from China accounted for more than half of all patent families (52.2%) in 2015, followed by Japan (14.6%), the U.S. (10.4%) and the Republic of Korea (8.9%). China’s share of the world total more than doubled between 2010 (25.2%) and 2015 (52.2%), while the share of Japan, the Republic of Korea and the U.S. declined over the same period – with Japan seeing the sharpest drop from 26.2% in 2010 to 14.6% in 2015.
Half of all applications were first filing, the other half repeat filings, mostly at foreign offices-
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For the past two decades (1995–2015), the ratio of families to applications has remained more or less stable at around 0.54. This means that just over half of all applications are initial filings and the others repetitive filings, mostly at foreign offices. Belgium (0.17), Denmark (0.18), Norway (0.19) and Switzerland (0.16) have low family-to-application ratios for the period from 2012 to 2014 – indicating substantial duplication due to high numbers of cross-border filings. Conversely, China (0.8), Poland (0.7) and the Russian Federation (0.8) have high ratios, indicating less duplication due to low numbers of cross-border filings.
China, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the U.S. were the five largest sources of patent applications.
The size of patent families (i.e., the number of offices) reflects their geographical coverage. Around 83% of patent families created worldwide between 2013 and 2015 were filed in a single office. There is considerable
variation among top origins, however. For example, around two-fifths of all patent families originating from the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland cover a single office, whereas single-office patent families account for around 98% of all families for China and the Russian Federation. Focusing exclusively on foreign-oriented patent families shows that the U.S. (154,216) created the largest number of such families between 2013 and 2014, followed by Japan (144,512), the Republic of Korea (58,537), Germany (57,007) and China (35,084).
Canon Inc. of Japan created 24,006 patent families between 2013 and 2015, followed by Samsung Electronics (21,836) of the Republic of Korea and the State Grid Corporation of China (21,635). Eight of the top 10 companies are located in Asia. International Business Machines of the U.S. (14,972), ranked fifth, and Robert Bosch of Germany (12,598), ranked 10th, are the only two non-Asian applicants in the top 10 list.
The highest shares of Canon’s patent families created during this period relate to optics technology (27.5%), audio-visual technology (16.6%) and
computer technology (14.7%). Computer technology (26.1%) accounted for the highest share of families belonging to Samsung Electronics, followed by digital communication (15.9%) and semiconductors (11.9%). For the State Grid
Corporation of China, electrical machinery (31.2%) was the most important technology field, followed by measurement (21.3%) and IT methods for
management (8.1%). The top 50 list is comprised of applicants located in just five countries. Japan heads the list with 20 companies, followed by China (13), the Republic of Korea (7), the U.S. (6) and Germany (4). The top 50 list mainly
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Institute of Technology (7,274), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (5,058), Southeast University (6,074), Tsinghua University (5,363) and Zhejiang University (8,108) – also feature.
Three Asian countries – the Republic of Korea, China and Japan – filed the highest number of patents per unit of GDP
Computer technology remains the most frequently featured technology field in applications. In 2016 – the latest year for which complete data are available due to the delay between application and publication – computer technology was the most frequently featured technology in published patent applications
worldwide with around 198,400 published applications. It was followed by electrical machinery (185,600), digital communication (134,000), measurement (129,400) and medical technology (118,700). These five fields accounted for 28.9% of all published applications worldwide. Among the top 20 technology fields, food chemistry (+12.5%), materials and metallurgy (+8.8%) and digital communication (+8.5%) witnessed the fastest average annual growth between 2006 and 2016. All of the top 20 technology fields saw growth in published applications between 2006 and 2016, with the exceptions of audio-visual technology (−2.0%) and optics (−1.1%), both of which saw a slight decline.
Among the top 10 origins in the period from 2014 to 2016, China and the Republic of Korea filed most heavily in electrical machinery and computer technology; Japan in electrical machinery; France and Germany in transport; Switzerland and the U.K. in pharmaceuticals; the Netherlands in medical
technology; the Russian Federation in food chemistry; and the U.S. in computer technology. The combined share of the top three technologies for the top 10 origins ranged from 19.3% for the U.K. to 29% for the Russian Federation.
Among the large middle-income countries in the period from 2014 to 2016, applicants residing in India (15.7% of total published applications) and Mexico (11.1%) filed most heavily in pharmaceuticals; Brazil (6.5%) in other special machines; Malaysia (8.9%) in computer technology; South Africa (6.3%) in civil engineering and Turkey (11.4%) in other consumer goods. Bermuda (15%) and Singapore (11.5%) – two high-income countries – filed mainly in computer technologies.
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Figure 9 - Patent grants
Offices carry out a formal and substantive examination to decide whether or not to issue a patent. The procedure for granting a patent varies between offices, and differences in the numbers of granted patents among offices depend on factors such as examination capacity and procedural delays. For this reason,
application data for a given year should not be compared with grant data from the same year.
In 2017, an estimated 1.4 million patents were granted worldwide, up 3.9% on 2016 figures, and represent 17 consecutive years of growth. China (420,144) issued the largest number of patents in 2017, followed by the U.S. (318,829), Japan (199,577), the Republic of Korea (120,662) and the EPO (105,645). These five offices issued more than 1.16 million patents between them – 83% of the world total. Among the top 10 offices, India granted 50.2% more patents in 2017 than in 2016, with grants increasing from 8,248 in 2016 to 12,387 in 2017. Non-resident grants accounted for 85% of the total increase. The EPO (+10.1%) and the
Republic of Korea (+10.8%) also exhibited double-digit growth in 2017. For the EPO, this is the second successive year of double-digit growth.
The office of the U.S. (+5.2%) also saw strong growth in 2017. Following three successive years of strong growth, China reported modest growth of 3.9% in 2017. Beyond the top 10 list, Mexico granted 8,510 patents in 2017. Brazil (5,450), Malaysia (5,063) and South Africa (5,535) each issued more than 5,000 patents. Thailand issued 3,080 patents in 2017, which is 67.6% higher than the total for the previous year. All these offices, except Mexico, saw strong annual growth in patent grants. Asia’s share of worldwide patent grants was 57.2% in 2017, which is similar
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to its 2016 share. However, its share of grants has gradually followed an upward trend over the past 10 years – increasing from 53.5% in 2007 to 57.2% in 2017. Offices located in North America accounted for 24.4% of patent grants worldwide in 2017, while offices in Europe accounted for 14.5% of the world total. The
combined share for Africa, LAC and Oceania was 3.9%.
The number of patents in force in the U.S. amounted to 2.98 million in 2017
Figure 10 - Patent application per state and residents
Patent rights generally last for up to 20 years from the date the application was filed. The estimated number of patents in force worldwide rose from 8.5 million in 2008 to 13.7 million in 2017. In 2017, the largest number of patents in force was recorded in the U.S. (2.98 million). China (2.09 million) and Japan (2.01 million) each had around 2 million patents and the U.K. (1.24 million) and Republic of Korea (970,889); these countries make up the top five jurisdictions.
Among the top five offices, China recorded the fastest growth between 2010 and 2017, with 20.5% average annual growth. The Republic of Korea
(+6.1%), the U.S. (+5.8%) and Japan (+5.1%) exhibited similar growth rates, while the U.K. had close to zero growth (+0.1%). The top 20 list includes 17 offices from high income countries and three from upper middle-income countries, namely China, Mexico and the Russian Federation.
Holders must pay maintenance/renewal fees to maintain the validity of their patents, and may opt to let a patent lapse before the end of its full term. For the 65 offices that reported their in-force data broken down by year of filing, between
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40% and 43% of patents granted remained in force for at least 6 to 10 years after the filing date, and about one-fifth lasted for the full 20 years.
Although patents can be maintained for 20 years, the average age of
patents varied across offices. For example, the average age of all patents in force in 2017 in Thailand was 14.2 years, while in China it was 7.2 years. Along with Thailand, India (13 years), Viet Nam (12.2 years) and Chile (12 years) also have high average ages of patents in force.
More than 75% of applications examined in 2017 resulted in patents being granted at the offices of Australia and the Russian Federation
Patent offices examine applications and decide whether or not to grant patent rights. Examination processes differ across offices, which makes cross-country comparisons difficult. However, every effort has been made to compile examination outcome data based on common definitions and concepts. More than 75% of applications examined in 2017 resulted in patents being granted at the patent offices of Australia and the Russian Federation. Japan also had a high share of patents granted for applications processed. Among the 10 selected offices, Germany, India, the U.K. and the U.S. granted patents for fewer than half of all applications processed in 2017. The shares of rejected applications were the highest in the U.K. and the U.S., while India reported the highest share of those withdrawn.
The offices of China and the U.S. each had more than one million potentially pending patent applications in 2017 Patent offices must assess whether the claims in applications meet the standards of novelty, non-obviousness and industrial applicability defined in national laws. Processing patents therefore consumes time and resources. The total number of potentially pending
applications worldwide stood at 5.7 million in 2017. This estimate is based on data from 108 offices. For the first time, pending applications data is available from the IP office of China.
The IP office of China had the largest number of potentially pending
applications (1.11 million) in 2017. It was followed by the U.S. (1.08 million), Japan (815,295) and the EPO (652,427). Most of those offices had fewer potentially pending applications in 2017 compared to 2016. For China, no data prior to 2017 are available. Among selected middle-income countries, Brazil and India each reported more than 200,000 potentially pending applications in 2017. However, Brazil had 7.2% fewer pending applications in 2017 compared to the previous year, while India saw a 6.7% drop.
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Figure 11 - Rejected applications
L
AW
A patent does not give a right to make or use or sell an invention. Rather, a patent provides, from a legal standpoint, the right to exclude others from
making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the patented invention for the term of the patent, which is usually 20 years from the filing date subject to the payment of maintenance fees.
From an economic and practical standpoint however, a patent is better and perhaps more precisely regarded as conferring upon its proprietor "a right to try to exclude by asserting the patent in court", for many granted patents turn out to be invalid once their proprietors attempt to assert them in court.
A patent is a limited property right the government gives inventors in exchange for their agreement to share details of their inventions with the public. Like any other property right, it may be sold, licensed, mortgaged, assigned or transferred, given away, or simply abandoned.
A patent, being an exclusionary right, does not necessarily give the patent owner the right to exploit the invention subject to the patent. For example, many inventions are improvements of prior inventions that may still be covered by
someone else's patent. If an inventor obtains a patent on improvements to an existing invention which is still under patent, they can only legally use the
improved invention if the patent holder of the original invention gives permission, which they may refuse.
Some countries have "working provisions" that require the invention be exploited in the jurisdiction it covers. Consequences of not working an invention
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vary from one country to another, ranging from revocation of the patent rights to the awarding of a compulsory license awarded by the courts to a party wishing to exploit a patented invention. The patentee has the opportunity to challenge the revocation of license, but is usually required to provide evidence that the
reasonable requirements of the public have been met by the working of invention. In most jurisdictions, there are ways for third parties to challenge the validity of an allowed or issued patent at the national patent office; these are called
opposition proceedings. It is also possible to challenge the validity of a patent in court. In either case, the challenging party tries to prove that the patent should never have been granted.
There are several grounds for challenges: the claimed subject matter is not patentable subject matter at all; the claimed subject matter was actually not new, or was obvious to experts in the field, at the time the application was filed; or that some kind of fraud was committed during prosecution with regard to listing of inventors, representations about when discoveries were made, etc. Patents can be found to be invalid in whole or in part for any of these reasons.
Patent infringement occurs when a third party, without authorization from the patentee, makes, uses, or sells a patented invention. Patents, however, are enforced on a nation by nation basis. The making of an item in China, for example, that would infringe a U.S. patent, would not constitute infringement under US patent law unless the item were imported into the US.
Patents can generally only be enforced through civil lawsuits (for example, for a U.S. patent, by an action for patent infringement in a United States federal court), although some countries (such as France and Austria) have criminal penalties for wanton infringement. Typically, the patent owner seeks monetary compensation for past infringement, and seeks an injunction that prohibits the defendant from engaging in future acts of infringement. To prove infringement, the patent owner must establish that the accused infringer practices all the requirements of at least one of the claims of the patent.
An accused infringer has the right to challenge the validity of the patent allegedly being infringed in a counterclaim. A patent can be found invalid on grounds described in the relevant patent laws, which vary between countries. Often, the grounds are a subset of requirements for patentability in the relevant country. Although an infringer is generally free to rely on any available ground of invalidity (such as a prior publication, for example), some countries have sanctions
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to prevent the same validity questions being re-litigated. An example is the UK Certificate of contested validity.
Patent licensing agreements are contracts in which the patent owner (the licensor) agrees to grant the licensee the right to make, use, sell, and/or import the claimed invention, usually in return for a royalty or other compensation. It is
common for companies engaged in complex technical fields to enter into multiple license agreements associated with the production of a single product. Moreover, it is equally common for competitors in such fields to license patents to each other under cross-licensing agreements in order to share the benefits of using each other's patented inventions.
OWNERSHIP
In most countries, both natural persons and corporate entities may apply for a patent. In the United States, however, only the inventor(s) may apply for a patent although it may be assigned to a corporate entity subsequently and inventors may be required to assign inventions to their employers under an
employment contract. In most European countries, ownership of an invention may pass from the inventor to their employer by rule of law if the invention was made in the course of the inventor's normal or specifically assigned employment duties, where an invention might reasonably be expected to result from carrying out those duties, or if the inventor had a special obligation to further the interests of the employer's company.
The inventors, their successors or their assignees become the proprietors of the patent when and if it is granted. If a patent is granted to more than one proprietor, the laws of the country in question and any agreement between the proprietors may affect the extent to which each proprietor can exploit the patent. For example, in some countries, each proprietor may freely license or assign their rights in the patent to another person while the law in other countries prohibits such actions without the permission of the other proprietor(s).
GOVERNING LAWS
The grant and enforcement of patents are governed by national laws, and also by international treaties, where those treaties have been given effect in national laws. Patents are granted by national or regional patent offices. A given patent is therefore only useful for protecting an invention in the country in which that patent is granted. In other words, patent law is territorial in nature. When a patent application is published, the invention disclosed in the application becomes
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prior art and enters the public domain (if not protected by other patents) in
countries where a patent applicant does not seek protection, the application thus generally becoming prior art against anyone (including the applicant) who might seek patent protection for the invention in those countries.
Commonly, a nation or a group of nations forms a patent office with responsibility for operating that nation's patent system, within the relevant patent laws. The patent office generally has responsibility for the grant of patents, with infringement being the remit of national courts.
There is a trend towards global harmonization of patent laws, with the
World Trade Organization (WTO) being particularly active in this area. The TRIPS Agreement has been largely successful in providing a forum for nations to agree on an aligned set of patent laws. Conformity with the TRIPS agreement is a
requirement of admission to the WTO and so compliance is seen by many nations as important. This has also led to many developing nations, which may historically have developed different laws to aid their development, enforcing patents laws in line with global practice.
Internationally, there are international treaty procedures, such as the procedures under the European Patent Convention (EPC) [constituting the European Patent Organization (EPOrg)], that centralize some portion of the filing and examination procedure. Similar arrangements exist among the member states of ARIPO and OAPI, the analogous treaties among African countries, and the nine CIS member states that have formed the Eurasian Patent Organization. A key international convention relating to patents is the Paris Convention for the
Protection of Industrial Property, initially signed in 1883. The Paris Convention sets out a range of basic rules relating to patents, and although the convention does not have direct legal effect in all national jurisdictions, the principles of the convention are incorporated into all notable current patent systems. The most significant aspect of the convention is the provision of the right to claim priority: filing an application in any one-member state of the Paris Convention preserves the right for one year to file in any other member state, and receive the benefit of the original filing date. Another key treaty is the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), administered by WIPO and covering more than 150 countries. The Patent
Cooperation Treaty provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its contracting states. A patent application filed under the PCT is called an international application, or PCT application.
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A
CTORS
As stated above there are many actors involved in the patent processes. We hereafter explain all of them and their role, with their rights.
INVENTOR
The definition for inventorship can be simply explained: The threshold question in determining inventorship is who conceived of the invention. Unless a person contributes to the conception of the invention, he is not an inventor. The inventor maintains intellectual domination over the invention. An inventor has to contribute something to the conception of the invention, not merely be the supervisor of the inventor or someone that acted under the direction and supervision of the inventor.
APPLICANT
Effective since September 16, 2012. The USPTO revised the rules of practice to permit a person to whom the inventor has assigned or is under an obligation to assign an invention to file and prosecute an application for patent as the
applicant, and to permit a person who otherwise shows sufficient proprietary interest in the matter to file and prosecute an application for patent as the applicant on behalf of the inventor.
ASSIGNEE
The assignee is the entity that has the property right to the patent. Patents are property. The inventor and the assignee may be one in the same but an
employee will more than likely assign a patent to a company.
The assignment of a patent is independent from the inventorship. A patent may be assigned to a series of different entities but the inventorship, once properly stated, does not change. The patent office allows for correction of inventorship if the error occurred without deceptive intent.
ATTORNEY
A patent attorney is an attorney who has the specialized qualifications necessary for representing clients in obtaining patents and acting in all matters and procedures relating to patent law and practice, such as filing an opposition. The term is used differently in different countries, and thus may or may not require the same legal qualifications as a general legal practitioner.
