FEDINVENT DATA
How FedInvent Counts Patents
Each week FedInvent analyzes new granted patents and published patent applications whose origins lead back to funding from the US federal government. We assemble a weekly patent catalog and analyze the inventions, the inventors and the entities who received the patents. We map the patents back to the agency that funded the R&D that led to the new invention. FedInvent uses the funding opportunity descriptions, the grants and the contracts that define the research areas of interest and the R&D policies and priorities of that drove and are driving the funding to organize each weeks patents.
ABOUT OUR DATA
The weekly patent catalog includes patents with government interest statements indicating federal funding; and patents where the assignee, the owner of the invention, is the federal government. This includes work on federal grants, work on federal contracts, innovation by Federal Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) funded by Federal Departments, and University Affiliated Research Centers funded by the Department of Defense (DoD).
Not every inventor is a government contractor. There are many inventions conceived and patented by scientists and engineers working for the federal government or serving in the military.
THE NUMBERS MAY NOT MATCH THE NUMBER OF PATENTS WE ANALYZE EACH WEEK
The numbers in the analysis presented on the FedInvent pges will not add up to the number of patents granted each week. Patents may be counted by each agency that funded the discovery and creation of the invention. Patents and funding have a many to many relationship.
One patent may have more than one funding grant or contract associated with it. A grant or contract may lead to more than one patent. More than one agency may have funded the inventors or the contract. More than one university or business may have worked together on an invention. When we report the numbers here, we associate a patent with all of the entities and funding that are reflected on the patent and report them to you.