To study Norwegian patenting in Europe we link EPO patent data to the national registries of all enterprises. This extends the approach used in the previous chapter in time and in scope, as it includes European patents through 2005. The firm-linked patent approach represents a marked improvement on existing approaches, as discussed above. It is useful in constructing a baseline as the approach:
• can identify the size and industry of the patenting firms: patent-counts only provide aggregate counts;
• includes a full-count of all enterprises: the Community Innovation Survey (CIS 4) excludes firms with under 10 employees, i.e. the majority of Nordic firms;
• provides a global picture in which particular populations can be focused on and compared; case-studies and other small-scale surveys provide limited evidence about the situation of individual firms.
The approach used here is slightly different than in the previous chapters. Here we build on a common approach that was employed for all Nordic countries in what is the first concerted cross-country collaboration to link administration-data and IPR data.76
76 In 2008 OECD initiated work on patent name harmonization to which the author and his Nordic colleagues have contributed. S
The definitions used to build the common Nordic approach are slightly different from that used in the previous chapters. In this chapter, the presentation of firm-size for example relies on the EU definition (2003); the
used in this chapter builds on the Nordic effort, which was the first time that national teams collaborated to consistently match and analyze patent-data. See Iversen et al. 2009.
correspondence between International Patent Classes (IPC) utilizes a common key first developed for the OECD Patent Manual (1994); the name-harmonization process relies on existing studies (WIPO, 2003; Eurostat, 2006).
Small and medium-size enterprises: For the sake of comparison, the study employs the EU definition of SMEs (EU, 2003). This definition is pegged to the number of employees, but recognizes that size involves overall resources. Therefore a measure for turnover or balance-sheet total is included which overrides the purely employment based division.
The four categories are:
1. Micro (0-9 employees and less than €2 million in turnover) 2. Small (10-49 employees and less than €10 million in turnover) 3. Medium-sized (50-250 employees and €50 million in turnover)
4. Large (firms with more than 250 employees or greater than €50 million in turnover).
This definition entails that a SME is an enterprise with fewer than 250 employees and/or €50 million in turnover. 77
Applications: The study looks at European Patent Office (EPO) and domestic patent applications (Norwegian Patent Office) involving at least one Norwegian applicant received. Focus is placed on the EPO applications. Since membership affects the propensity to patent through the EPO office, a greater proportion of Norwegian patenting is found at the domestic office in the timeframe than in other Nordic countries.
Because of the relatively small scale of Norway and its economy only about 0.6% of Norwegian firms qualify as large according to this definition. Therefore, the chapter breaks down results according to the smaller classes as well.
The contribution of the Norwegian applicant(s) to patent applications that involve more than one applicant is computed as a fraction of that application (i.e. fractional counts are used). EPO applications include patents that arrive at the EPO either through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) route or directly.
Time-span: In the case of the European patents, this is the date of publication at the EPO. For the domestic data the date of application is when it was received by the office.
Enterprises (foretak) versus Establishments (bedrift): the enterprise-level was used and all values (number of employees and turnover) were aggregated up to this level.
77 The definition is slightly different from the one developed in the preceding chapter.
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Industrial activity: The enterprise’s industry is defined via the EU’s NACE classificaiton (Nomenclature générale des Activités économices dans les Communautés Européennes). The most up-to-data classification is used if this had changed over time. Zip-codes were associated to county and district-levels via the Norwegian Post’s database, thus allowing us an additional criterion on which to check the identity of the applicants.
Technological Areas: The primary IPC classes of the patent applications were associated to Technological Areas by a widely-used Correspondence Key: the INPI/OST/ISI Key, Version 3. This correspondence key was first suggested in the OECD Patent Manual (1994; 2008).
3.1. IPR data
The backbone of the patent data comes from the EPO Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (Patstat, see the Annex). The EPO currently includes 34 countries, with Norway among its latest members. The Patstat database however documents the patent record of more than 80 countries.
The extraction is from the October 2007 edition of the Patstat. The intent of Patstat is to provide researchers with raw-data. As a result the quality of the data, specifically that of the instrumental name and address fields, are lower than that found in the providing offices (see comments in Iversen et al, 2009). Therefore, the Patstat data is complemented by two sets of patent data:
1. The Norwegian Patent Office (NPO) data: the Norwegian Patent Office data extracted in December 2007 and includes more specific information about the status of the applications in addition to the cleaned applicant fields. Note that the data also includes patent applications even if they were withdrawn before the statutory date. These applications, which largely involve smaller applicants, are usually not reported. They can be used here to compare difficulties that emerge during the application process among small firms as against larger firms (see preceding chapters).
2. Questel Orbit Data was also used to supplement the Patstat coverage of EPO and Euro-PCT applications involving Norwegian applicants. In addition to cleaned name files, this data include opposition data and data on lapsed applications which can be useful in gauging differences in patenting behavior among the different populations.
3.2. Business register data
These enterprises are linked by enterprise name with concurrent years of the Employment database for all Norwegian enterprises (hereafter “National Registry”)78. This registry is put together by Statistics Norway on the bases of firm-level information from the Brønnøysund Register Centre (http://www.brreg.no/english/) for all Norwegian enterprises and companies and the National Insurance Service’s (Rikstrygdeverket www.nav.no) registry of active employees and employers. This database is a registry that contains all enterprises (and subsidiary companies) that formally pay wages to at least one person. (a registered workforce of about 2 million) The enterprise-level information used here includes information about firm-size, industrial activity, number of companies, annual turnover etc. This type of registry is only found in a limited number of countries, especially the Nordic countries.
Box 1 The National Registry data
Source: NAV Aa-register (Employer-Employee database) and Enhetsregisteret (ER) SSB Time-span: 2000-2005
Key-dimensions: All economic entities including public organizations
Special Conditions: Number of entities expanded in 2001-2002 as the minimum number of employment was lowered. Presentation of the Industry structure relies on the Employer-Employee database (excluding many sleeping entities). Merging procedure involves the wider ER to include links with entities without employment.
These matches were further tested against the full-count of all firms registered in Norway (Bof Enhetsregister). There are approximately twice the number of firms in the BoF database, as it includes all firms registered in the country, though not necessarily active. Many firms do not record employment and/or industrial activity. Such firms may be used as vehicles for patent applications, especially among private individuals and very small firms who are just making a start. A link here is therefore relevant to the study, although it may not necessarily yield information about the employment or even the industrial activity of the registered firm. Absent employment information, the enterprise will be listed as a firm without employment (“Other Firm”). It is in all probability a Micro-firm.
78 Based on the firms in the Employer-Employee database (AA database or “Arbeidstaker-Arbeidsgiver”). See Furseth &
Haglund (2008) Arbeidsdeling mellom Brønnøysundregistrene (BR), NAV Aa-registeret og Statistisk Sentralbyrå (SSB).
Statistics Norway, 2008/18. The presentation of the Industry structure relies on the Employer-Employee database (excluding many sleeping entities). Merging procedure involves the wider ER to include links with entities without employment
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3.3. Merging patent data with business register data
The database analysis conducted in the study is based on coupling the identity of Norwegian applicants in the patent-applications with firm-level information available from the business registries. The name-matching procedure relies on the official Organization Number used in Norway (foretaksorganisasjonsnummer), which is associated to applicants name. The procedure itself is adapted from standard procedures that have been developed here (Iversen, 2003; Magermann et al, 2007). The details of the approach are presented in Annex79