Agrifood: the conjunction of AgriTech and FoodTech domains, both harnessing the power of data analytics, biotechnology and automation relating to the commercial production of food by farming.
AgriTech: involves the application of cutting-edge technologies such as drones, sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance crop yields, optimize water usage and improve soil health.
CAGR: compound annual growth rate; initially used to calculate and determine the rate of investment return, it represents the average annual growth rate between two dates in the study.
European patent (EP): a European patent can be obtained for all the European Patent Convention (EPC) locations by filing a single application at the European Patent Office (EPO). European patents granted by the EPO have the same legal rights and are subject to the same conditions as national patents (granted by the national patent office). A granted European patent is a “bundle” of national patents, which must be validated at the national patent office to be effective in member locations. The validation process could include submission of a translation of the specification, payment of fees and other formalities at the national patent office. Once a European patent is granted, competence is transferred to the national patent offices. Other regional patents or procedures also exist: the Eurasian patent (EA), ARIPO patent (AP) for English-speaking Africa and OAPI patent (OA) for French-speaking Africa.
FoodTech: focuses on developing new and innovative solutions for food production, processing and delivery, with a particular emphasis on sustainability, food safety and nutrition.
Geographic coverage: global patents within Questel Orbit Intelligence. Detailed information on the geographic coverage of Orbit Intelligence can be found in the solution home of Orbit Intelligence.
Granted patent: once examined by the IP office, an application becomes a granted patent or is rejected. If granted, the patent gives his owner a temporary right for a limited time period (normally 20 years) to prevent unauthorized use of the technology outlined in the patent. Procedure for granting patents varies widely between locations according to national laws and international agreements. Note that in the same patent family, an application can be granted in one location and rejected in another.
International patent family: defined as a patent family that has been filed and published in two or more jurisdictions (sometimes also known as foreign-oriented patent families or extended patent families). This contrasts with a domestic-only patent family or a non-international patent family, which consists of patent family filed in only a single jurisdiction (often known as a “singleton”).
Patent applicant: when a person is applying for a patent, the word "applicant" refers to the assignee, the person to whom the inventor is under an obligation to assign the invention, or the person who otherwise shows sufficient proprietary interest in the matter.
Patent application: to obtain a patent, an application must be filed in the appropriate IP office with all the necessary documents and fees. The IP office will conduct an examination to decide whether to grant or reject the application. Patent applications are generally published 18 months after the earliest priority date of the application. Prior to that publication, the application remains confidential.
Patent classification: patent classification is a system for examiners of IP offices or other people to code documents, such as published patent applications, according to the technical features of their content. The International Patent Classification (IPC) is agreed internationally. The European Patent Office (EPO) and USPTO launched a joint project to create the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) in order to harmonize the patent classifications systems between the two offices.
Patent family: defined as an “invention-based family” using the Questel FAMPAT family grouping. The FAMPAT patent family definition from Questel incorporates the EPO’s strict family rule (same priority application(s)) with additional rules (applications falling outside the 12 months filing limit; links between EPO and PCT publications…) etc. It is seen as a reasonable compromise between strict family and extended family (e.g. INPADOC) definitions.
PCT (WO): the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is an international patent law treaty concluded in 1970, administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), between more than 140 Paris Convention locations. The PCT makes it possible to seek patent protection for an invention simultaneously in each of a large number of locations by filing a single “international” patent application instead of filing several separate national or regional patent applications. The granting of patents remains under the control of the national or regional patent offices, which is referred to as the “national phase.”
Priority filing: the first location in which a particular invention has a patent application filed, also known as the office of first filing.
Unicorn status: a startup company valued at over US$1 billion which is privately owned and not listed on a share market.