Patent & Trademark Concordances
Economists studying innovation and technology have used patent data for decades. Patent data are exceptionally rich and - when properly understood - can generate powerful empirical insights.They are also difficult to analyze jointly with economic data because their underlying classification systems do not easily map into each other.
With funding from the NSF SciSIP Program, several collaborators and I formulated a text-mining approach we call Algorithmic Links with Probabilities (ALP) to construct probablistic concordances between patent, trade and industrial classification systems. We applied similar methods to construct ALP concordances for trademarks as well.
The complete and current set of ALP concordances are available for download below.
Published and Working Papers
Getting Patents & Economic Data to Speak to Each Other: An ‘Algorithmic Links with Probabilities’ Approach for Joint Analyses of Patenting & Economic Activity
Travis J. Lybbert and Nikolas J. Zolas. 2014. Research Policy 43: 530-542. Article | Slides
An ‘Algorithmic Links with Probabilities’ Concordance for Trademarks with an Application Towards Bilateral IP Flows
Nikolas Zolas, Travis J. Lybbert, and Prantik Bhattacharyya. 2016. The World Economy.Article | Slides
An ‘Algorithmic Links with Probabilities’ Crosswalk for USPC and CPC Patent Classifications with an Application Towards Industrial Technology Composition
Nathan Goldschlag, Travis J. Lybbert and Nikolas J. Zolas, Working Paper
Downloadable ALP Concordance Files
The table below includes zipped files of all the concordance files neededt to map different Intellectual Property Classifications into various Economic Classifications. This detailed Readme file explains the format and use of the concordances. For details on their construction, see the papers linked above.
Intellectual Property Classification | Economic Classifications Included | |||
![]() | ISIC | NAICS | SITC | HS |
![]() | ISIC | NAICS | SITC | HS |
![]() | ISIC | NAICS | SITC | HS |
![]() | ISIC | NAICS | SITC | HS |
IPC=International Patent Classification
USPC=US Patent Classification
CPC=Common Patent Classification
NICE=Trademark classification system