Derived metric methodology, version 1.0
Patent applications
Total patent applications filed with national offices: resident plus nonresident filings, for every geography and year where both are reported.
Specification
How the value is computed
Formula in plain words
The sum of IP.PAT.RESD and IP.PAT.NRES, for each geography and period. A period with any component missing produces no value.
Components
| Label | Metric | Geography | Lag | Transform | Scale | Constraint |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IP.PAT.RESD | Patent applications, residentspatent-applications-resident, applications per yearObserved | same as the output | none | level, as stored | 1 | none |
| IP.PAT.NRES | Patent applications, nonresidentspatent-applications-nonresident, applications per yearObserved | same as the output | none | level, as stored | 1 | none |
- Combination
- Sum of the transformed components.
- Missing data
- Skip the period: no value is produced unless every component is present. Nothing is interpolated or carried forward.
- Window
- None: each period stands on its own.
- Normalization
- None: the combined value is published in its own unit.
- Unit and rounding
- applications per year. No rounding; the value is stored as computed.
- Default geography
- WLD
What has been computed
- Current values
- 4214
- Geographies
- 167
- Periods
- 42, 1980 to 2021
- Last computed
- 2026-09-07 22:04 UTC
- Produced by
- version 1.0
Last verification
- Outcome
- success
- Run at
- 2026-09-07 22:15 UTC
- Examined
- 5101 derived values across all metrics, 5090 reproduced, 0 issues
- This metric
- 4214 of 4214 reproduced, 0 issues
Worked example
World, 2021
3,401,100 applications per year
- Observation id
- 408913
- Formula version
- 1.0
- Source revision
- v1.0/ef03f9f1ff8e
- Computed at
- 2026-09-07 22:04 UTC
- Coverage
- 2 of 2 components (minimum 2)
- IP.PAT.NRES
- 1,015,900
- IP.PAT.RESD
- 2,385,200
2 observations
| Observation id | Metric | Geography | Period | Value | Source revision |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 89621 | patent-applications-resident | WLD | 2021 | 2,385,200 | 2026-07-13 |
| 85020 | patent-applications-nonresident | WLD | 2021 | 1,015,900 | 2026-07-13 |
Recompute by hand: The sum of IP.PAT.RESD and IP.PAT.NRES, for each geography and period. A period with any component missing produces no value. Applying that to the rows above gives 3,401,100 applications per year.
History
Version history
Version 1.0, effective 2026-01-01 00:00 UTCcurrent
Formula patent_applications(geo, year) = IP.PAT.RESD(geo, year) + IP.PAT.NRES(geo, year)
Patent applications, version 1.0
Formula. For each geography and year, total applications = resident applications (World Bank series IP.PAT.RESD) + nonresident applications (World Bank series IP.PAT.NRES).
Units. Applications per year, unchanged from the components.
Missing data. If either component is missing for a geography and year, no value is produced for that year. No interpolation, smoothing or rebasing is applied.
Revision. The derived value is recomputed after every ingestion of the component series. A changed component value produces a new observation row; earlier rows are kept.
Source revision label. v1.0/<resident lastupdated>+<nonresident lastupdated> so a value can be traced to the exact source releases it was computed from.