Technical notes

Country income groups

This report uses the World Bank income classification to refer to particular country groups. The classification is based on gross national income per capita in 2018 and establishes the following four groups: low-income economies (USD 1,135 or less); lower middle-income economies (USD 1,136 to USD 4,465); upper middle-income economies (USD 4,466 to USD 13,845); and high-income economies (USD 13,846 or more).

More information on this classification is available at http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-classifications.

Scientific publication data

The scientific publication data used in this report comes from scientific articles published from 2001 to 2022 in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) of the Web of Science (WOS), the citation database operated by the Clarivate Analytics company. The analysis focuses on observations referring only to scientific articles, conference proceedings, scientific abstracts and data papers. Scientific articles constitute the bulk of the resulting dataset.

Trademark data

The trademark data used in this report comes from WIPO’s Global Brands Database (sourced in November 2023). The main unit of analysis is a trademark filling filed in a country by an applicant.

Patent data

The patent data used in this report are from the European Patent Office’s (EPO) Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT, October 2023), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) collections.

The main unit of analysis is the first filing for a set of patent applications filed in one or more countries and claiming the same invention. Each set containing one first and, potentially, several subsequent filings is defined as a patent family.

The analysis also distinguishes foreign-oriented patent families – also referred to as international patent families – from domestic-only ones. Foreign-oriented patent families concern those inventions for which the applicant has sought for patent protection beyond its home patent office. This definition includes also patent applications by applicants filing only abroad, filing only through the PCT system or any international system (such as ARIPO, EPO, OAPI, etc.). Reciprocally, domestic-only patent families refer to those patent applications filed only at the applicant’s home office – regardless of how many filings in the home office there are within the same family – without any subsequent foreign filing through the Paris or PCT routes. Likewise, patent applications with applicants of more than one origin are foreign-oriented patent families.

Video game publishing data

Some video game data used in this report comes from the online wiki database www.mobygames.com accessed between 2016 and 2023. The data provide details on games, contributors, publishers and developers spanning games published from 1950 to 2018.

International trade data

The export data used in this report comes from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN COMTRADE) extracted from the API in June, 2023. Export data on goods refers to statistics at SITC v.3 at the 3-digit level from 2001 to 2020. Export data on services refers to the Extended Balance of Payments Services Classification 2010 (EBOPS 2010) using the SDMX standard format.

Mapping strategies

The mapping strategy for each of the case studies – agricultural technologies, motorcycles and videogames – is based on prior studies and expert suggestions. Each strategy was compared to existing alternative sources whenever possible.

The scientific publication mapping strategies are based on a combination of journals’ main scientific subjects and keywords searched for in abstracts. The patent mapping strategies are based on a combination of patent classifications – namely, the International Patent Classification (IPC) and the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) – and keywords searched for in PATSTAT data. The production mapping strategies are based on the categories from the Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) version 3.

A brief description of the three strategies follows.

Agricultural technologies

The agricultural technologies utility model and patent mapping is based on the combination of CPC and IPC symbol of “A01".

The statistics in the chapter for country-levels are based on the above-mentioned definition of patent families, including both international patent families and domestic-only ones.

UPOV data used in the chapter is based on data disclosed to UPOV by its Member States.

Motorcycles

The motorcycle patent mapping is based on the following combination of CPC and IPC symbols and keywords, sought in titles and abstracts. The statistics in the chapter are based on international patent families. These patents are classified in seven sub-categories of motorcycle-related technologies as follows:

The motorcycle trade data refers to HS codes 871110, 871120, 871130, 871140, 871150, 871160, and 871190, in UN COMTRADE, from 2017 to 2022.

Video games

The video game industry patent mapping strategy is based on a combination of keywords CPC and  IPC codes

The search also includes the following keywords: video, consol, PC, comput, game, gaming, play, esport, e sport, e sports, electronic sport, e virtual realit, virtual-realit, virtual world, virtual-world, virtual-realit, mixed realit, augmented realit, augmented-realit

The trademark mapping strategy for this chapter involved searching trademark filling descriptions for combinations of the following keywords: video, computer, PC, console, game, gaming, e sport, esport, e-sport, video-game, and video-gaming.