Patent Data Specifications

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The patent database contains the merged datasets from the USPTO bulk data and Harvard Dataverse using SQL. Specifics on how the datasets were merged are given in Patent Data Processing - SQL Steps. The patent database consists of 16 tables covering patents, patent litigation, patent maintenance, patent assignment, and other details on patent owners. Additionally, known issues with each table have been recorded.

Tables

assignee: citation: The US patent system allows for inventors, patent attorneys, and USPTO patent examiners to reference other patents that are considered prior art or related inventions. These references are theoretically in place to limit or help define the scope of a patent's claims. Often times, the patent improves upon these referenced patents or may be a new application of previously patented subject matter. Citations may also be unrelated to the patent's subject matter, and therefore, cannot be fully relied upon in studies of innovation and transfer of ideas between inventors. (See 'Why do Inventors Reference Papers and Patents in their Patent Applications?', IEEE (2010).) For the Little Guy Academic Paper the citation data may be used as a measure of litigation risk for a patent, as suggested previously by a paper by Lanjouw Schankerman studying patent litigation of small firms. A patent may be more likely to be litigated if it cites many patents or a patent may be at higher risk if it does not cite related subject matter as other inventors may consider this infringement. Our hope is to further investigate the importance and effects of patent citations and define their role in patent litigation and dissemination of knowledge between inventors and IP centered firms. Additionally, the McNair center plans on defining whether or not citations characterize patent quality, whether a patent is useful and novel.

fee: The USPTO requires maintenance fees to be paid by the patent assignee. For each patent a firm owns, it must assert large, micro, or small entity status. According to the America Invents Act, both small and micro firms receive fee discounts on a majority of maintenance fees. The fee amount each firm pays is specified online by the USPTO on its comprehensive maintenance fee schedule. By recording the status asserted for each issued patent, the McNair center is able to identify which firms identify as small and micro firms, establishing the research potential for the Little Guy Academic Paper. Once identified, these small and micro firms may be used to track the effects of patent litigation on patent ownership and a small or micro firm's livelihood. The fee table was used to create the fee status table, facilitating the identification and tracking process.