A. Relevance and sustainability context
A.1 Policy relevance
Patents are indicators for market-relevant innovation activities in the bioeconomy, as they have a connection to the commercialization or economic exploitation of inventions. Patent applications refer to inventions in the technical field, which are new and for which an industrial application interest of the applicants is assumed. This is because they grant their owners temporary protection against competing developments and are thus an industrial property right. The filing of a patent application involves considerable costs.
Patent indicators also have their limitations, such as some innovations are not patentable, some (patentable) market-relevant innovations are not patented, many innovations are protected by other mechanisms and some patent propensity varies across sectors/industries and applications and over time.
A.2 Sustainability and / or comparative evaluation options
Comparison to total patents to measure the contribution of the bioeconomy innovation activities as well as comparison to other countries in total and per technology field is possible. No further data source is needed for that.
B. Data availability
B.1 Stage of development
It is semi-established as there have been some delineations and calculations of patents for the bioeconomy, among others JRC has made some calculations, but not yet integrated in publicly available data. For this monitoring, a revised delineation has been elaborated.
B.2 Data sources
EPO and WP patents
B.3 Coverage over time and replicability
Time and country coverage is high; the time lag is around 18 months (Time for applicated panted to be granted and published)
B.4 Coverage across scales and sectors; compatibility
The indicator is developed in way that it is calculable at all scales where data is available. Sectoral breakdown with the chosen delineations of technologies would not be robust enough.
C. Considerations for operationalization
C.1 Feasibility: Fit for monitoring
The indicator is very robust; It is feasible to collect and to interpret. Please note that for interpretation of evolution over time comparison to total patents in Germany is needed for interpretation (as patent numbers mostly rise over time).
C.2 Institutions
Fraunhofer ISI
C.3 Future prospects
Continuation straight-forward
C.4 Costs, considerations and reproducibility
Sharing the search strings (IPC codes + potentially search items) is possible; there are usually some database costs for patent analysis.
C.5 Potential for automation
Automatization via search strings possible
C.6 Presentation options and breakdown / sub-indicator needs
Usually growth rates of patents and tech specialization in a country perspective, and number and tech in an international perspective are used. A breakdown in technology fields with similar indicators would gain additional insights where strengths and growth happens.
C.7 Potential for scenario integration
Rather not, the number / specialization of patents does not provide information, which is well connectable to other scenario parameters (sometimes econometric models work with that as a proxy for tech progress).
C.8 Interlinkages and alignment with other monitoring activities
JRC has done patent analysis for the bioeconomy in context of monitoring system, but here a sectoral perspective has been adopted.