Top technology sectors by country

Which technology sectors are of primary significance to Finland? What about Israel or Italy? This visualization compares those countries, showing the top-5 most significant USPTO art units per country, in terms of numbers of US patents which issued in 2012 to assignees in those countries.

You can immediately see that art unit 2617 (cellular telephony) is the most significant art unit for Finland. For Israel it’s art unit 2624 (image analysis) and for Italy it’s art unit 2913 (one of the USPTO’s several design patent art units). No surprises there. Let’s look further.

For Finland, the next most significant art unit is 2916—another design patent art unit. Is that a surprise? No—the underlying patents pertain to handset design, a vital ingredient in the fiercely competitive cellular telephony sector.  [Click the FAQ tab and read item 6 to see how to check the underlying patents.]

Continuing with Finland, art unit 2618 (radio and satellite communications) is next—another close fit with cellular telephony. But then we have art unit 1741 (tires, adhesive bonding, glass/paper making, plastics shaping & molding). Does that make sense? Indeed it does—consider Finland’s strong pulp & paper technology sector and note that paper making comes within art unit 1741.

For Israel, the next most significant art unit is 2617 (cellular telephony), but note what comes next: art unit 1661 (plant patents). Is that a surprise? No—Israel has a significant flower export market.

No surprises when we look more closely at Italy either—the top-5 art units all pertain to design patents, reflecting Italy’s prominence in industrial design.

You can experiment with top-5 art unit (and top-5 IPC subclass) breakdowns for any countries of interest by clicking the Top Technologies tab above. Notice that, for Italy, the top IPC subclass is "not indicated". Why is that? It’s because there is no IPC classification for design patents.  As noted above, Italy’s top-5 technologies (in terms of USPTO art units and patents issued in 2012) pertain to design patents.