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  • Dataset | 16 Oct 2015
Biotechnology patent applications to the EPO by priority year
Bioeconomy Knowledge Centre

Data on patent applications in the biotechnology sector to the EPO by priority year, expressed in number of total applications, per million inhabitants and per million of active population.

Patents reflect a country's inventive activity. Patents also show the country's capacity to exploit knowledge and translate it into potential economic gains. In this context, indicators based on patent statistics are widely used to assess the inventive performance of countries.

This dataset provides users with data concerning patent applications / granted to the European Patent Office - EPO, patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office - USPTO and triadic patent families. EPO data refer to all patent applications by priority year as opposed to patents granted by priority year, which is the case of USPTO data.

Data collection done at the EPO and at national Patent Offices. Data compilation done at Eurostat based on PATSTAT.

Million inhabitants refer to the population the 1st of January each year, and the main source is the Eurostat collection of Population. Main source for the million labour force figures is the European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS).