Scientific thomsonreuters.com

Bob Stembridge
Thomson Reuters
December 2008

If evidence of the explosion in volumes of patent information currently being published worldwide were needed, look no further than the number of new inventions being added to the world’s premier patent information database, Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI).

Since 1963, Thomson Reuters has been capturing the world’s innovation through abstracting and indexing new inventions described in patent documents from 41 patent issuing authorities worldwide. The DWPI database now stands at just over 17 million inventions covering 36.9 million individual patents. More significant than this however is the inexorable rise in the volume of inventions captured each year. In 2007, that number reached just shy of 900,000. In October 2008, the number of records added to DWPI exceeded one million for the first time ever. This is set to rise still further to 1.24 million by year end, an increase of 37 per cent compared to 2007. What could account for such a dramatic increase in just 12 months?

The clue lies in the identity of the 1,000,000th record added to DWPI this year: this invention is a patent application from ZTE Communication Co Ltd, a Chinese company located in the Guangdong province in South China, and describes an improved cell phone user interface.

It is noteworthy that this patent describes a telecommunications technology. The growth in Chinese inventions in this technology area has been particularly significant in recent years. In 1995, Telephone and Data Transmission Systems technology was ranked outside the top five technology areas in China. By 2005, it had moved into second place. (World IP Today report, Autumn 2008).

Figure 1: the 1,000,000th record added to DWPI this year

A closer look over the last five years between 2003 and 2007 shows continuing year on year double digit percentage growth in this technology area:

Figure 2: telephone and data transmission patents published in China (source: Derwent World Patents Index)

The growth in inventions originating from China in all technology areas continues to outstrip the rest of the world with an average compound annual growth rate of over 20 per cent in recent years. China is now the third most prolific patent publishing authority behind Japan and the U.S. The number of Chinese patent applications published each year now exceeds those issued from both the Korean and European Patent Offices respectively.

Figure 3: Illustrating numbers of patents published by authority, and percentage increase over the five year periods 1985 to 2000 and 2000 to 2005
(Source: World Intellectual Property Organization 2007 Patent Report) [link to PDF]

DWPI coverage of Chinese patents
The Chinese patent office was founded in 1980, but the first Chinese patent applications did not start to appear until 1985. DWPI coverage of China started at that time with editorially re-written English language titles, abstracts and classifications. That coverage has recently been enhanced with the addition of more detailed abstracts and structural indexing for polymer, pharmaceutical, agrochemical and general chemical inventions from Jan 2008 onwards, and human translations of the full text of all claims for all technologies from July 2008 forwards.

Utility models
Beyond coverage of Chinese invention patents, a number of additional sources were introduced this year in response to customer requests:

• Chinese Utility models: coverage from Jun 2007
• Korean Utility models: coverage from Jan 2008
• Japanese Utility models: coverage from Jan 2008

While these have a shorter protection period than invention patents, utility models provide a more affordable way for inventors to protect their innovation and are particularly popular in China with annual volumes comparable to those of Chinese invention patents. As publicly available documents, they form part of the prior art which needs to be searched when establishing the novelty of an invention and so form an important addition to DWPI, particularly for companies wishing to establish the freedom to operate in China.

DWPI coverage of Chinese Utility models provides English language titles, abstracts and classifications from Jun 2007 with enhanced coverage from Jan 2008 onwards (detailed abstracts and structural indexing for polymer, pharmaceutical, agrochemical and general chemical inventions), and human translations of the full text of all claims for all technologies from July 2008 forwards.

Korean Utility model coverage in DWPI provides detailed abstracts for all technologies and structural indexing for polymer, pharmaceutical, agrochemical and general chemical inventions, and machine translations of the full text of all claims for all technologies from Jan 2008 forwards.

Japanese Utility model coverage in DWPI provides detailed abstracts for all technologies and structural indexing for polymer, pharmaceutical, agrochemical and general chemical inventions from Jan 2008. Machine assisted translations of the author’s original title, abstract and the full text of the first claim are also included in the DWPI record for all technologies from May 2008 forwards.

This additional coverage has resulted in a further 210,000 inventions to date being added to DWPI. This, together with the growth in numbers from existing sources, accounts for the 37 per cent projected increase in the number of new inventions added to DWPI in 2008.

Transforming editorial operations
The DWPI team’s ability to successfully handle enhanced coverage and the increase in new inventions is a direct result of the recent transformation of editorial operations. This began in June 2007 with the expansion of existing operations in India through the recruitment of hundreds of scientists and engineers in the Hyderabad and Chennai regions. An editorial hub was also established in London. Following intensive induction programs lasting many months, operations in India are now able to provide valuable additional resources, as well as the capacity to process the ever-increasing volumes of patent information our customers need to keep abreast of in their work.

Additional information
In anticipation of one million+ records being added to DWPI in 2008, the format of the accession number was changed at the beginning of the year.

The previous format of yyyy-nnnnnn (where yyyy is the year and nnnnnn is a six digit number) allowed up to 999,999 records to be accommodated in a year.

The new format of yyyy-xnnnnn (where yyyy is the year, x is a letter from a-z and nnnnn is a five digit number) now allows up to 26 times 99,999, or 2,599,974 records, to be accommodated in a year.

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