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U.S. PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
Electronic Information Products Division
Patent Technology Monitoring Team (PTMT)

U.S. Government Utility Patents, Fiscal Years 1978 - 2004

PARTS A1, A2, B
Granted: 10/01/1977 - 09/30/2004
A Patent Technology Monitoring Team Report

Parts of the Report

Description of the Report

Report Printing and Use of Spreadsheet Software

PART A1 -

Number of Patents Granted As Distributed By Year Of Patent Grant

• (Table A1-1a) Breakout By Country of Origin
• (Table A1-1b) Breakout By Ownership Category

Percent of Patents Granted As Distributed By Year Of Patent Grant

• (Table A1-2a) Breakout By Country of Origin
• (Table A1-2b) Breakout By Ownership Category

PART A2 -

Number of Patents Granted As Distributed By Year Of Patent Application

• (Table A2-1a) Breakout By Country of Origin
• (Table A2-1b) Breakout By Ownership Category

Percent of Patents Granted As Distributed By Year Of Patent Application

• (Table A2-2a) Breakout By Country of Origin
• (Table A2-2b) Breakout By Ownership Category

PART B

Organizational Patentees With 1 or More Patents Granted During the Period, As Distributed By Year Of Patent Grant and As Distributed By Year Of Patent Application

CONTACT INFORMATION -

U.S. Government Utility Patents, Fiscal Years 1978 - 2004
PARTS A1, A2, B
Granted: 10/01/1977 - 09/30/2004
A Patent Technology Monitoring Team Report

Description of the Report

This report counts only documents of the following type(s):
utility patents (i.e., "patents for invention")
granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office during the period 10/01/1977 - 09/30/2004. These profiled documents hereafter will be referred to as "patents".

PATENTS INCLUDED IN THIS REPORT

This Patent Technology Monitoring Team (PTMT) Report profiles patent activity for U.S. patents granted between 10/01/1977 and 09/30/2004. The source of the data used for this report is the TAF database maintained by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

FISCAL YEAR ANNUAL DATA

Please note that this Patent Technology Monitoring Team (PTMT) Report profiles patent activity by FISCAL YEAR. The time period covered by a fiscal year does not correspond to the time period covered by the same numeric calendar year. While the calendar year extends from January 1 to December 31, the fiscal year extends from October 1 through September 30. For example, fiscal year 2004 corresponds to the time period from October 1, 2003 through September 30, 2004. Because the fiscal year and calendar year time periods differ, patent statistics for a fiscal year also will differ from the statistics for the same numeric calendar year.

PARTS A1 AND A2 (IF INCLUDED)

Parts A1 and A2, if included, present tables which profile, by number and percent, the activity of the specified patents. Annual totals may be provided for some years and a consolidated year total also may be provided. Part A1 presents data by year of patent grant ("Patents Granted As Distributed By Year of Patent Grant"). Part A2 redistributes patent grant data by year of patent application, i.e., the year in which each patent application was filed ("Patents Granted As Distributed By Year of Patent Application"). Patent data as shown in the "Pre YYYY" column (where "YYYY" is a four-digit year) correspond to activity in the specified period prior to "YYYY".

In Tables A1-1a and A2-1a, the totals are broken down by origin (patent origin is determined by the residence of the first-named inventor), either U.S. or foreign. Separate counts are displayed for many of the foreign countries receiving the most granted patents during the period. In Tables A1-1b and A2-1b, patent counts are displayed according to general category of ownership, e.g., corporate-owned, government-owned, or individual-owned.

Patent ownership information reflects ownership at the time of patent grant and does not include subsequent changes in ownership. If more than one assignee (owner entity) was declared at the time of grant, the patent is attributed to the first-named assignee. The U.S. and Foreign Corporations ownership categories count predominantly corporate patents; however, patents assigned to other organizations such as small businesses, nonprofit organizations, universities, etc. are also included in this category. While U.S. Government patent ownership includes only patents granted to the Federal Government, no such distinction is made for Foreign Government ownership patents.

Please note that U.S. origin patents may have foreign category ownership and that foreign origin patents may have U.S. category ownership. Therefore, the patents having U.S.category ownership (or foreign category ownership) do not necessarily correspond to the patents having U.S. origin (or foreign origin) and the sum of U.S. category ownership patents (or foreign category ownership patents) will not equal the sum of U.S. origin patents (or foreign origin patents).

Also, please note that patent documents in the TAF database are limited to utility patents granted no earlier than January 1963 and to other document types (i.e., design, plant, and reissue patents, statutory invention registrations, and defensive publications) granted no earlier than 1977.

PART B (IF INCLUDED)

Part B is a listing of national and international organizations (i.e., corporations, universities, government agencies, etc.) that have received U.S. patents during the profiled time period. The availability of assigned ownership data in the TAF database, as displayed in Part B, begins in 1969 for utility patent grants and in 1977 for design, plant, and reissue patents, statutory invention registrations, and defensive publications. The listing is limited to organizations receiving 1 or more patents during the period. This minimum number is identified in the title heading of the table. Part B ranks these organizations in terms of total patents granted for the period and displays their annual patent activity for the most recent period. Patent grants are distributed in two ways, by year of grant and by year of patent application. Data line 1 for each listed organization distributes the counts of patent grants by the year of grant while data line 2 redistributes those same patent grants by the year in which the patented applications were filed. Please note that in some reports, only one of the two data lines may be displayed. Information regarding patent ownership reflects ownership at the time of patent grant. Although a substantial effort has been made to combine name variations into a single organizational name, many organizations continue to have patents listed under more than one name.

Patent data, as shown in the "Pre YYYY" column (where "YYYY" is a four-digit year), correspond to activity in the specified period prior to "YYYY".

DATA DISTRIBUTION BY YEAR OF GRANT AND BY YEAR OF APPLICATION

Other Considerations

DATA FOR THOSE APPLICATIONS WHICH WERE FILED BUT NEVER ISSUED (ROUGHLY 25% OF TOTAL FILINGS) ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THIS REPORT.

Since the average time period between filing for a patent and the issuing of the patent (i.e., the patent's "pendency") is now about 24 months (for utility patents), the patent grant data, as distributed by year of application, are incomplete for the most recent years that are displayed in the report.* This is because a significant number of those applications which ultimately will become patents were still pending as of these most recent years that are displayed.

Patented application data are of significant value since the date an application was filed more accurately reflects when the technology was developed. Additionally, fluctuations in data based on application date are much more likely to reflect changes in technological activity since, for the most part, such fluctuations would be immune from changes in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) processing such as occurred in years such as 1986 and 2005 when the USPTO issued fewer patents than would have normally been expected due to administrative reasons. Note that a patent's "pendency" can be quite variable from one patent to another, thereby affecting the date of patent grant. Such variation in pendency is determined by many factors, including PTO workload (which varies between technologies), budget and manpower levels, patent printing schedules, etc. Please note that other types of patent documents such as design patents, plant patents, reissue patents, statutory invention registrations,and defensive publications may have average pendency periods that differ somewhat from the pendency period for utility patents.

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* For example, in a calendar year report profiling utility patents granted through December 2004, patent grant data, as distributed by year of application are approximately 93% complete for utility patent applications filed in 1999, 84% complete for applications filed in 2000, 66% complete for applications filed in 2001, and 44% complete for applications filed in 2002; data are essentially complete for applications filed prior to 1999. Completion percentages for fiscal year statistics should be similar.

Report Printing and the Use of Spreadsheet Software

This report can be printed from an Internet browser - for such printing, optimal results are usually obtained by printing in landscape orientation with minimal margins and a small text font. Microsoft Internet Explorer, version 7, works particularly well for printing this report using its "Shrink to Fit" option.

Additionally, a user may import this report file into spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel to facilitate printing. Such spreadsheet software also may facilitate sorting and further manipulation of the data.

U.S. Government Utility Patents, Fiscal Years 1978 - 2004
PARTS A1, A2, B
Granted: 10/01/1977 - 09/30/2004
A Patent Technology Monitoring Team Report

Part A1
Tables A1-1a and A1-1b

Number of Patents Granted as Distributed by Year of Patent Grant,
Breakout by Country of Origin (Table A1-1a) and by Ownership Category (Table A1-1b)

U.S. Government Utility Patents, Fiscal Years 1978 - 2004
PARTS A1, A2, B
Granted: 10/01/1977 - 09/30/2004
A Patent Technology Monitoring Team Report

Part A1
Tables A1-2a and A1-2b

Percent of Patents Granted as Distributed by Year of Patent Grant,
Breakout by Country of Origin (Table A1-2a) and by Ownership Category (Table A1-2b)