Patent based analysis of Ukrainian economy

 

Patent statistics provide major indicators for assessing the innovation potential and are one of the key indicators of the technological development of countries and regions. According to WIPO data (World Intellectual Property Organisation), Ukraine demonstrates relatively high patent activity (please consult also chapter 9.3 for more information on Ukraine’s patent activities).

 

The State Intellectual Property Service of Ukraine, which is the main office for patent filing in Ukraine, reports that in 2012²⁹the activity in filing of applications for industrial property rights (IPRs)remained stable compared to previous years. Filing of applications for IPRs can serve as an indicator for the national industrial performance (as pointed out in the report³⁰ by the European Patent Office for instance). 10.1% of the applications were applications for inventions, 20.8% applications on utility models and 65.3% applications for trademarks on goods and services (a share of 28.9% of this number was filed under the Madrid system³¹). The smallest number of applications went on industrial design, accounting for 3.8 %.³²

 

The industrialised regions of Ukraine play the most important role in terms of patent activities: The analysis of the distribution of the total number of applications for inventions and utilitymodels by regions in 2012 indicates that over 76% of applications were submitted by enterprises and organisations located in the industrialised regions of Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Luhansk, Lviv,

 

Odessa, Kharkiv and Kyiv. As mentioned earlier, on today’s data must be looked very differently, as the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk are currently not under Ukrainian governmental control and administration.

 

Many patent applications are made in the sector “performing operations and transport”, while the textiles and paper sector on the other hand shows very little patent applications. The Ukrainian chemistry and metallurgy sector is relatively more prominent in the national patent application portfolio than at international level. Physics play a much larger role in Ukraine’s PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) output than in its national patent output (please see chapter 9.3 for more details on the difference between PCT and nationally filed patent applications). Also electricity is a field with more prominence in PCT patents than in nationally filed patents in Ukraine.

 

National filed patent applications in the technological sector

 

The following two illustrations give an overview on Ukraine’s national filed patent applications in the technology sector from 2003 to 2013. To put the data in some context, the numbers of national filed patent applications in selected nearer and farer neighbouring countries of Ukraine are indicated as well. Table 3 pours the data on Ukraine’s national filed patent applications in detailed numbers. The data are taken from a recent background paper on patenting activities in the Back Sea Region, prepared within the

 

“BLACK SEA HORIZON (BSH) project”.³³

 

Ukraine has the largest national share (21.3%; next to Azerbaijan with 28.7%) in the instruments area.

 

Chemistry is also important in Ukraine’s output portfolio. Among all comparison countries listed in Table 3, Ukraine has second most patent applications (17,327) after Russia (214,406) in total, almost doubling Turkey which follows. In terms of quantity, most applications made by Ukrainian inventors were in the chemistry sector, with 5,659 national filed applications in total. Ukraine’s specialisation pattern is similar to the ones of Romania or Russia and, thus, resembles overall regional characteristics. Chemistry is the field with the highest output, followed by mechanical engineering.

 

29 Last available data.

 

30 http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/intellectual-property/docs/joint-report-epo-ohim-final-version_en.pdf: accessed on 29 April 2016.

 

31 http://www.wipo.int/madrid/en/: accessed on 2 May 2016.

 

32 Self-assessment report: Scientific and technological sphere of Ukraine, MESU, 2016, p.33

 

33 BLACK SEA HORIZON: “Analysis of Black Sea relevant data in PATSTAT”, Deliverable within BLACK SEA

HORIZON project, 2016, p.29-30 (DRAFT)

 

National filed patent applications (technological sector) in absolute numbers and in %

 

Country /	Electrical	Instruments	Chemistry	Mechanical	Other	Row total
Sector	engineering			engineering	fields
AM
AZ
BG
GE
MD
RO
RU
TR
UA
AM	36.9%	11.5%	31.5%	10.8%	9.2%	100%
AZ	5.0%	28.7%	26.2%	12.9%	27.2%	100%
BG	30.9%	13.1%	22.0%	24.8%	9.2%	100%
GE	7.1%	8.8%	39.0%	37.3%	7.8%	100%
MD	9.5%	21.1%	40.1%	24.3%	5.0%	100%
RO	16.7%	18.0%	29.1%	27.8%	8.4%	100%
RU	8.9%	19.7%	37.8%	24.1%	9.5%	100%
TR	14.4%	10.6%	20.1%	34.6%	20.2%	100%
UA	9.2%	21.3%	32.7%	29.1%	7.7%	100%

 

Table 3: National filed patent applications in Ukraine and selected other countries from 2003-2013 (technological sector only); source = BSH deliverable (draft)

 

There is a slight specialisation pattern detectable in the area of instruments. At the level oftechnology fields, Ukraine’s relative specialisation is strong in medical technology (1,871, almost 10% of its output), and measurement (1,260 applications or almost 7% of its output). Remarkable are further the specialisation grades in materials/metallurgy (1,499 applications), machine tools (867 and with almost 5% a higher share than in any other Black Sea country) and other special machines (1305).³⁴

 

PCT filed patent applications in the technological sector

 

Figure 5: PCT filed patent applications in Ukraine and selected other countries from 2003-2013 (technological sector only); source = BSH deliverable (draft); source = BSH deliverable

 

(draft)

 

Figure 5 shows the share of technological PCT filed applications in percent (according to the total sum of 100%), and Table 4 translates these shares into exact numbers.

 

 

34 BLACK SEA HORIZON, Deliverable within BLACK SEA HORIZON, p.35 (DRAFT)

 

PCT filed patent applications (technological sector) in absolute numbers and %

 

	Country /			Electrical			Instruments			Chemistry			Mechanical			Other			Row total
	Sector			engineering							engineering			fields
	AM
	AZ
	BG
	GE
	MD
	RO
	RU			1,588			1,443			2,278			2,044			1,040
	TR
	UA
	AM			15.8%			12.3%			19.3%			35.1%			17.5%			100%
	AZ			12.5%			21.4%			17.9%			37.5%			10.7%			100%
	BG			18.0%			13.2%			19.9%			35.3%			13.6%			100%
	GE			12.7%			12.7%			36.4%			23.6%			14.5%			100%
	MD			15.7%			23.5%			21.6%			25.5%			13.7%			100%
	RO			15.2%			13.2%			21.1%			31.9%			18.6%			100%
	RU			18.9%			17.2%			27.1%			24.4%			12.4%			100%
	TR			11.4%			12.5%			31.1%			28.7%			16.3%			100%
	UA			19.5%			12.9%			26.0%			28.4%			13.2%			100%

 

Table 4: PCT filed patent applications in Ukraine and selected other countries from 2003-2013 (technological sector only); source = BSH deliverable (draft)

 

As Table 4 depicts, from 2003 to 2013, Ukraine has a total output of 1,125 PCT filed patent applications in the technological sector, which is less than Russia and Turkey. PCT filed applications are made under the international “Patent Cooperation Treaty”, introduced by the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO), and guarantee international patent protection. However, the more countries an inventor wants to have a protection for his patent in, the more costly such an application is. Currently 148 countries are members of the PCT.

 

Most PCT filed applications from Ukraine were made in the mechanical engineering sector (320, representing 28.4% of the total national share in PCT filed applications). Least patents were filed in the instruments sector (145 or 12.9% of the total share).

 

Concluding, Ukraine’s PCT output shows a stronger concentration on electrical engineering (share of

 

19.5% in PCT filed applications compared to a share of 9.2% in national filed ones) and less focus on instruments compared to its national filed applications (share of 21.3% in national filed applications compared to 12.9% in PCT filed ones). The drastic difference in the total output numbers (17,327 national filed applications vs. 1,125 PCT filed applications) is caused firstly, as mentioned above, by the fact that PCT filed applications are far more costly. Secondly, for a PCT filed application the inventor’s application has to conform to the international patent standards as stipulated in the patent cooperation treaty. As these standards are usually more complex than national standards, which are set up by national offices, the number of applications to national authorities are higher.

 

Concerning the specialisation grades in Ukraine’s PCT applications, audio-visual technology, digital communication and computer technology (all from the electrical engineering sector) are relatively important in its total portfolio.