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What the official Intellectual Property data of Spain for 2015 tell us

More than 60% of the patents and trademarks applied for historically correspond to Madrid, Catalonia, Andalusia and the Community of Valencia.

If we add Galicia, the Basque Country, Aragon and Castile and Leon we include up to 80% those applied for in the country as a whole. Over the last three years the “large regions” have shown a better overall evolution than the “medium sized” ones.

Within the group of “large regions” as regards patents, Andalusia is the one that has shown the best evolution over the last three years. It shares this position with Madrid as regards to trademarks. Within the group of “medium sized regions” Galicia and Castile and Leon are those who have shown the best development and Aragon as far as trademarks are concerned.

When presenting the first official data for 2015 regarding Industrial Property in Spain, we have been able to see how the different indicators analyzed in the Clarke, Modet & Cº INDEX show us quite a pessimistic view of the country. All of them indicate the harsh fact that never in the history of modern patents in Spain have fewer patents per capita been requested (1).

But can this trend be applied to all of Spain?

If we focus on the two most popular modes, the Spanish trademarks and patents, what we can see, first of all, is an important concentration in four Spanish regions. More than 60% of the patents and trademarks applied for historically correspond to Madrid, Catalonia, Andalusia and the Community of Valencia. If we add Galicia, the Basque Country, Aragon and Castile and Leon we include up to 80% of those applied for in the country as a whole.

If we focus our attention on the first group we can appreciate an uneven evolution between the two modes.

Thanks to the details of the data published (2) we can carry out an interesting experiment.

What would have been the evolution over these last few years should all the regions started from the same position? Based on the data available we are able to carry out an analysis from December 2012, also bearing in mind the relative importance, as regards population, of each of these regions.

In the case of Madrid, Catalonia, Andalusia and the Community of Valencia as these are also regions with the highest population and GNP, we have the result in the images below:

In the case of Galicia, the Basque Country, Aragon and Castile and Leon, which we can refer to as medium sized regions:

As we can see, the trend between regions has been very unequal but we can reach some conclusions that we already knew, the general evolution of trademarks is superior to that of patents.

Large regions have shown a better overall evolution when compared the medium sized ones and there are four winners:

Within the group of large regions, as regards patents Andalusia is the one that has shown the best evolution over the last three years. It shares this position with Madrid as regards to trademarks.

Within the group of medium sized regions Galicia and Castile and Leon are those who have shown the best development and Aragon as far as trademarks are concerned.

The study of the data published, mainly by the SPTO, provides us with a lot of other very interesting information and conclusions that we regularly include in the Clarke, Modet & Cº INDEX.

None of these indicators would be especially relevant if we did not know that they have a direct bearing on other indexes that are essential for the country, especially those related to competitiveness. Given all the above, during the next few weeks we shall carry out a special follow-up of any data which may emerge and include certain analyses that we believe to be of interest.

(1) With the aggravating circumstance, as we mentioned in the article published on 28 September 2015, that this fall has not been due to the fact that the Spanish have decided to use alternative routes, such as the PCT or the European Patent: 

(2) It should be pointed out that, on a worldwide level, the SPTO (the Spanish Patents and Trademarks Office) is one of the industrial property offices that better and earlier publishes indicators of industrial property statistical progress.

Carmen Sánchez-Puelles