A brief history of space and time: The scope-year index as a patent value indicator based on families and renewals

Bruno Pottelsberghe de la Potterie and Nicolas van Zeebroeck
Additional contact information
Bruno Pottelsberghe de la Potterie: ECARES (U.L.B.)
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie ()

Scientometrics, 2008, vol. 75, issue 2, No 8, 319-338

Abstract: Abstract The renewal of patents and their geographical scope for protection constitute two essential dimensions in a patent’s life, and probably the most frequently used patent value indicators. The intertwining of these dimensions (the geographical scope of protection may vary over time) makes their analysis complex, as any measure along one dimension requires an arbitrary choice on the second. This paper proposes a new indicator of patent value, the scope-year index, combining the two dimensions. The index is computed for patents filed at the EPO from 1980 to 1996 and validated in its member states. It shows that the average value of patent filings has increased in the early eighties but has constantly decreased from the mid-eighties until the mid nineties, despite the institutional expansion of the EPO. This result sheds a new and worrying light on the worldwide boom in patent filings.

Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (57)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-007-1864-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
Working Paper: A brief history of space and time: the scope-year index as a patent value indicator based on families and renewals (2008)
Working Paper: A Brief History of Space and Time: the Scope-Year Index as a Patent Value Indicator Based on Families and Renewals (2007)
Working Paper: A brief history of space and time: the scope-year index as a patent value indicator based on families and renewals (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:scient:v:75:y:2008:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-007-1864-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11192

DOI: 10.1007/s11192-007-1864-z

Access Statistics for this article

Scientometrics is currently edited by Wolfgang Glänzel

More articles in Scientometrics from Springer, Akadémiai Kiadó
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().