Geneva, October 11 and 12, 2004
The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), organised a Workshop on the Use of Patent Statistics with the support of the EPO, JPO and USPTO. This was a follow up to the 2003 WIPO-OECD Workshop on Statistics in the Patent Field and was initiated by the OECD Task Force on Patent Statistics which gathers representatives from the following national, regional and international institutions: the Japan Patent Office (JPO), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the National Science Foundation of the United States of America (NSF), the European Patent Office (EPO), the European Commission (EC), and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), besides the OECD.
Over the past decade there has been a sharp increase in the level of worldwide patent activity. Firms and universities are increasingly using patents as a tool to protect inventions. At the same time, advances in information technology have facilitated the dissemination and analysis of patent data on a large scale. To understand the challenges faced by the suppliers of statistics in meeting these emerging needs, the Workshop focused on both empirical analysis and statistical issues, covering the following themes:
- Spillovers and diffusion of knowledge;
- Value of patents;
- New ways of using patent data to address policy issues;
- Forecasting patent data;
- Patent statistics and indicators Future development.
Audience
The Workshop was intended to provide a forum in which the discussion on the collection and use of patent statistics could be advanced. It was of particular interest:
- Policy makers dealing with innovation and intellectual property rights policies;
- Users of patent statistics (e.g. academics, researchers, etc.) in economic and policy analysis;
- National, regional and international patent institutions;
- Producers and providers of patent statistics (e.g. patent offices, statistical offices, companies providing patent database services, etc.);
- Representatives of the business community;
- Patent attorneys.