Patent data is provided by commercial data provider Digital Science.

The database includes patents with a Publication Year from 2011 onwards, provided that at least one of the Original patent Applicants has a Danish country code, and the patents are within the scope of the Digital Science Dimensions database. Publication Year is the year on which a patent application is first published by the relevant patent office (i.e. information about the invention is disclosed to the public). Original patent Applicant is a person or organisation that has filed a patent application.

Data is updated once per month. A process is initiated around the 20th of each month, to import patent data from 2011 onwards via API from Digital Science. This data is then processed, enriched and quality assured. New data is typically made available in the Patent database at the start of each month. 

NORA-Enhancements is a general term for standardised names used across all databases of Research Portal Denmark. Standardisation is done to ensure consistent and structured data, which makes it both easier to search and forms the basis for groupings of particular analytical interest.

In the Patent Database, the following metadata elements are standardised (mapped or grouped):

Danish applicants and groupings

All Danish applicants’ names are mapped to one standardised name and one grouping. For example, both “University of Copenhagen” and “Copenhagen University” are mapped to the standardised applicant name: “KU University of Copenhagen” as well as the grouping “Universities” (find these in the Danish Applicants filter).

Collaborating countries/regions

The other countries with which Danish applicants co-publish a patent (collaborating countries) are grouped into regions of analytical interest. For example, “Norway” is grouped into the regions “Europe“, “Non-EU“, “Nordic“, and “OECD” (find these in the Collaboration – Regions filter).

Subject classifications

Subject classifications from the Patent Data Provider are mapped and enriched to appear consistent across all the databases in Research Portal Denmark. In the Patents Database The following subject classifications are standardised:

1. Danish main research areas

The Danish classification system Danish Main Research Areas was developed in connection with the Danish research indicators (BFI, OAI) and consists of only 4 categories, which divide Danish research into the overarching categories: Science/Technology, Health Sciences, Social Sciences, and Humanities. Since this is a national local classification, data from the Patent Data Provider is mapped from the  AU/NZ FoR 2020 categories to the Main Research Area categories.

2. OECD

OECD FORD subject classification, also known as Frascati, is translated from the data provider into Fields of Research and Development (FORD) classification (2015), which is thus used as the standardised name form in Patents Data.

3. International Patent Classification (IPCR)

Each patent record receives the descriptive label for its International Patent Classification (IPCR). The labels for IPC symbols are based on the official IPC publication as available on the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) IPC website.

4. Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC)

Each patent record receives the descriptive label for its Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC). The labels for CPC symbols are based on the official version of the CPC scheme as available on the CPC website.

5. Sustainable Technologies tagging scheme

Each patent record tagged with classes Y02 and Y04 relating to Sustainable technologies in the Y section of the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC), receives descriptive labels for its subclasses. The labels for the Y02/Y04S scheme of the CPC classification are based on the official versions of the EPO’s dedicated tagging scheme for Sustainable technologies as available on the EPO website.

Read more about NORA-Enhancements in the technical documentation.

The Patents database has some challenges that are worth paying attention to:

• Patent Family Record 

In Research Portal Denmark the simple patent family is shown under the heading Patent Family Records. A simple patent family is a collection of patent documents that are considered to cover a single invention.

In certain instances, not all members or records belonging to the same simple patent family are listed under the heading Patent Family Records in the full record view. This partial representation is primarily due to limitations in the scope of the Research Portal Denmark patent database as covered by a Digital Science Dimensions database. For instance, the following patent records within the same simple patent family are not included and hence displayed: 

• • patent records without a single original patent applicant with a Danish country code 
  • patent records with publication years preceding 2011 
  • patent records that lack applicant information. 

For a more comprehensive representation of the patent family, you can utilise the Data Provider link located in the upper right corner in the full record view. 

• Publication types

Some patent records are missing info on the publication types. Those records are tagged as having a publication type N/A. 

• Priority Years

In some simple patent families there are more than one Priority Years. In these instances, two years will be displayed under the filter Priority Years.