Guide to STN Patent Databases – Basic Version - Paton - TU Ilmenau

27 Patent statistics
27.1 Introduction
Types of search
To create useful patent statistics time series, inventor and applicant statistics, country statistics, technology field
statistics, citation statistics there are a number of preconditions:
Suitable databases. The required fields must be available. They must be consistently filled throughout the
time period to be analyzed. They must be filled in such a way that the entries are useable, i.e. they need to
be structured and standardised. Multiple entries in one field should not occur.
Good database knowledge. The databases are differently suitable for patent statistics. National patent
databases are suitable only for statistics concerning a particular country while using international
databases patent statistics for several countries can be created. The dynamics concepts of the databases
should always be considered. Some databases contain only one document per national publication
sequence, others include further publications of the same patent application in various ways. In this case
the suitable fields must be chosen, e.g. to include into the analysis only the latest document of the national
publication sequence. The patent family size may also influence the statistics result. There are certain
analyses, e.g. citation statistics, where only few databases are suitable at all.
Good searching knowledge. A market or technology field analysis will always be preceded by a subject
search using classification and text search. It is up to the searcher to either use the documents from an
existing subject search or to prepare a special search strategy for the purpose of statistical analysis.
A competitor analysis will always be preceded by a carefully performed name search.
Using suitable statistics tools. STN International offers a number of tools:
SELECT can be used to create rankings. Creation and display of the lists can be tailored using a number
of options.
ANALYZE and TABULATE can be used to create statistical tables, that may then be displayed, sorted
and edited according to needs or that can be exported to Excel for post-processing.
Mit Analyze Plus werden die statistischen Tabellen inklusive Sortieren, Editieren und Visualisieren
menügeführt erstellt.
Using ANALYZE Plus it is possible to create the statistical tables guided by menus, including sorting,
editing, and visualization.
STN AnaVist is an interactive analysis and visualization tool. A precondition for this is that the data in
the databases are standardised.
The first precondition for an analysis of patent applications or granted patents is a suitable sample. It is only with an
appropriate search result that a meaningful result can be obtained with the statistics tools. Wrong documents in the
search result will lead to a false analysis result and cause misinterpretations. One cannot point out often enough
that a profound knowledge of the databases and search strategies is indispensable to perform statistical analyses. It
is only too often that errors are found even in the technical literature.
Below the STN tools for patent statistics are presented and their uses for the creation of statistical analyses are
discussed. The tools are either used on-line (in part the free STNGUIDE database can be used) or the tables and
diagrams can also be edited off-line. There may be fees for connect time to the databases and in some cases for use
of the tools, but there is no need to download, and thus pay for, the documents to be analysed.
27.2 The SELECT command
The SELECT command extracts terms from source documents, counts their occurrences, and creates a list of terms
ordered by descending occurrence.
=> SET ICFORMAT ON
=> SEL L1 1- IPC.F
E1 THROUGH E439 ASSIGNED
The command is used with the following parameters:
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