Data production methods for harmonised patent statistics : assignee sector allocation

In 2004, the inter-institutional Patent Statistics Task Force decided to create a Worldwide Statistical Database under the acronym of PATSTAT, which has to be understood as one single patent statistics raw database, held by the EPO and developed in cooperation with the WIPO, the OECD and Eurostat. Considering that industrial innovative activity has created a need for refinements in patent indicators, sector assignment thus has become a necessary condition for further analysis of the dynamics underlying technological performance. The document presents the methodology developed to produce an exhaustive sector assignment aiming to identify whether patentees are companies, universities and higher education institutions, or governmental agencies within PATSTAT. The paper also delineates paths for further improvements of the methodology within the world of researchers and analysts.