Exploitation of the CIB database

Various criteria for analysing the CIB corpus

The CIB database contains more than 5,3 millions of priority patents (for details see Methodology on patents) which were applied for between 1986 and 2005 by 2,312 multinational national corporations. For this project, the patents have been characterized according to 3 dimensions.

Group. This first entry allows to identify the patents applied for by one (or a selection of) industrial firm(s).
Technology. This second dimension permits the identification of the patents in one (or a selection of) technological field(s).
Geographical area. This last entry allows to identify the patents with inventors from one (or a selection of) country(ies).

The CIB website makes it possible to explore the CIB corpus of patents by combining 2 of the three dimensions presented above. Thus, by choosing “group” as a first dimension and “technology” as a second one, it is possible to analyze the distribution of a firm’s patents between various technologies. Another example: the choice of “technology” as a first dimension and “group” as a second one shows the distribution of the patents applied for in a particular technology by different firms.

For more details, see the table presenting the various analytical approaches corresponding to the 6 possible options resulting from combining 2 of the 3 criteria.

Various levels of aggregation of data

The CIB corpus can be analyzed at various levels of aggregation, for each of the three dimensions presented above.

Group. Firms can be selected at an individual level (2 312 different entries), at sector level (41 different entries), super-sector level (18 different entries), or industry level (10 different entries) or be considered as a whole (1 entry). In short, this first dimension offers 5 levels of aggregation and a sum of 2.342 options.
Technology. Technologies can be selected at a technological field level (35 entries), technological domain scale (10 entries) or be considered as a whole (1 entry). In short, this second dimension offers 3 levels of aggregation and a sum of 46 options.
Geographical area. The geographical areas can be selected at a country level (204 entries), at a regional level (21 entries), at a continent level (6 entries) or be considered as a whole (1 entry). In short, this third dimension offers 4 levels of aggregation and a sum of 232 options.

The range of analysis offered by the CIB website

Combining 2 of the 3 dimensions proposed for the analysis of the CIB corpus of patents and the various levels of aggregation offers more than 1,3 million combinations. The Visualisation page of the website makes it possible to analyze the CIB database using a system of requests relating to three analytical dimensions (group, technology, geographical area).

The results of these explorations are presented in a Treemap format. It shows diagrams composed of coloured quadrilaterals whose organization authorizes navigation towards finer levels of aggregation.

These quadrilaterals carry two types of information: their surface reflects the share of the patents concerned compared to the request considered; their colour (in a continuum from blue to red, passing by the green and the yellow) reflects the share of these patents in the whole of the CIB corpus. The size and the colour provide thus elements for calculating a specialization.

Let us illustrate these possibilities of visualization with the following example: a request that aims at spreading the patents whose inventor is in Germany (i.e. with “geographical area” as a first dimension of analysis) over the technological fields belonging to the technological domain of “mechanics” (i.e. with “technology” as a second dimension of analysis). The screen copy below presents the results of this research.

The entire surface of the coloured diagram represents all the priority patents applied for in the technological domain of “mechanics” whose inventors have an address in Germany.
The quadrilateral labelled “transport” corresponds to this technological field. Its size is proportional to the weight of this field in the whole of the “mechanical” technological domain for the patents whose inventors have an address in Germany.
The colour of this quadrilateral reflects the proportion of the patents relative to the “transport” technological field in the whole of base CIB.

As soon as the CIB database CIB is stabilized, a function of export will make it possible to download the data represented in the TreeMap diagrams.

Two ten-year periods observation

In order to make an analysis over time possible, the CIB data can be studied over two ten years periods – from 1986 to 1995 and from 1996 to 2005 - or over a twenty years period from 1986 to 2005.