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Fig. 3 Trends in EE patents in absolute numbers and as a proportion of total patents at EPO
(1990
-
2010).
Source
own work based on EPO [
19
]
extracted using the Thomson Reuters Core Patents search engine, the patent count
was calculated and sorted by application date,
2
with duplicates being dropped to
avoid prevent double counting of patents. Finally, the whole technological domain
was divided into three sub-domains: building, lighting and large residential appli-
ances (see Sect.
3
). A complete list of keywords is provided in Table
6a
,
b
in the
Appendix. For a comprehensive description of the data extraction methodology, see
Noailly and Batrakova [
57
] and Costantini et al. [
16
].
2.3 Trend in Energy Ef
ciency Patents
The number of patents for EE residential technologies increased dramatically in the
period 1990
2010. Figure
3
depicts the trends of EE patents in the residential sector
and the proportion of the total patents registered at EPO that they represent in the
same period for the countries listed in Table
7
. Despite a slight decrease between
2005 and 2007, which mirrors a general slump in patenting activity, EE patents
show constant growth. After 2007, EE patenting activity increased again, more
strongly than in the past, most likely due to the increasing application of EE
regulations in each country (e.g. the implementation of EE Action Plans, EEAPs, in
the European Union).
The growing trend is also con
-
rmed by the sectoral analysis shown in Fig.
4
for
the three sub-sectors of EE residential technologies considered, namely buildings,
lighting and large electrical appliances. In the case of buildings the increase in
patenting activity was particularly strong, especially in the period 2006
-
2010. It is
2
Speci
cally the
“
early application date
”
document
eld. Moreover, only application codes A1
and A2 are considered in order to capture the most innovative inventions.
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