Patent Transfers in Europe

This project is about the generation of the MPI-IC Patent Transfers Data 2015 (MPIIC-PT2015). The dataset entails all registered patent ownership changes of granted (DE) or validated in Germany (EP) between 1981 and 2013. That is, for each patent we have information on the current and all prior right holders in terms of name, country and address, as well as the date of patent ownership change. Our dataset, drawing on information from the DPMA and EPO, contains all patent ownership changes of national patents but also of EP bundle patents with Germany as a designated country. Due to the highest validation and renewal rates among all EP member countries, our data record as many patent ownership changes as possible on EP level. With the help of dictionary-based and rule-based methodologies, we classify all transfers according to a newly developed taxonomy of patent transfers. The data will be useful in the empirical analyses of several research areas, such as the emergence of a market for ideas, strategic patent acquisitions, and transfer pricing.

This project is part of the dissertation "Enforcing and Trading Patents - Evidence for Europe."