Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
[
4
,
8
,
10
,
27
,
31
,
44
,
46
,
48
,
53
,
54
,
62
,
67
] suggests that a patent-based analysis
may be the most appropriate way to study innovation dynamics in this
eld, in view
of the lack of speci
c data on efforts in research and development (R&D), espe-
cially in the private sector.
Despite some major limitations, the use of patent data is widespread in the
literature on the economics of innovation (see [
2
,
3
,
13
,
24
,
25
,
42
,
49
,
50
,
52
,
64
,
66
,
74
,
75
]). Indeed, patents provide a wealth of public information on the nature of
inventions and applicants for rather long time series, indicating not only the
countries where inventions are produced but also where new technologies are used
and derive from. Patent data frequently represent the direct result of R&D pro-
cesses, a further step toward the
nal output of innovation that is useful knowledge
through which
rms are able to generate new pro
t sources. Moreover, patent
applications are usually
led early [
24
], hence they can be interpreted not only as a
measure of innovative output but also as a proxy for innovation-related activity
[
68
]. Besides this, it is worth noting that patent data are subject to an extensive
process of updating of their information content, which is continuously enriched by
national and international patent of
ces. In addition, EE technologies are only
partially and roughly represented in the set of international patent classi
cations.
ll this gap is provided by Noailly and Batrakova [
57
],
who analyse the building sector for a limited number of countries. They use patent
applications per year in selected areas of environmental technologies in buildings,
classi
An initial contribution to
ed by applicant country and priority date. In order to identify the relevant
patents, they refer to technical experts, providing IPC classes related to speci
c
technologies together with a list of keywords for describing the state-of-the-art of
EE technologies in the building sector. Although this paper provides an important
contribution in mapping EE technologies, it does not consider the important domain
of domestic electrical appliances, which account for a large proportion of
nal
energy consumption and have a very high potential impact in terms of EE gains
thanks to the multiplier effect derived from their widespread distribution [
32
]. This
gap has been partially
lled by the recent Cooperative Patent Classi
cation (CPC),
a collaboration between the European Patent Of
ce (EPO) and the World Intel-
lectual Property Of
c patent classes for EE,
also including four domestic electrical appliances.
1
In particular, for patents related
to buildings, we adopt the methodology based on keywords developed by Noailly
and Batrakova [
57
], extending the search to 23 OECD countries and 21 years. In
our paper, we also take into account EE patents for domestic electrical appliances,
following the recent paper by Costantini et al. [
16
], which provides a compre-
hensive, up-to-date contribution in mapping this technological domain (including
also the new EE classes based on the CPC-Y02 classi
ce (WIPO), which now includes speci
cation) while maintaining the
same patent search methodology as for the previous sectors. As a result, we obtain a
set of 55,261 patent applications related to EE technologies in different residential
sectors, using a homogeneous extraction methodology. Once patent data were
1
In particular, freezers, refrigerators, washing machines and dishwashers.
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