Process-Product Innovation Patent Data

Process Innovation Patent Dataset following Tham, Basandze, Sojli and Liu (2026)

This dataset provides an updated data series for process innovation categories for all several patent datasets, as described below. Patents are categorised following the methodology of Tham, Basandze, Sojli and Liu (2026): “Foundational processes and firm growth,” with the full code available in Mendeley. The online appendix is available here and all other data (including international patents) are also available here.

Data description:

File “procprod_int.csv” provides the process and product categorisation for PATSTAT patents and includes the following variables:

Variable name   Definition

appln_id Patent application ID, PATSTAT internal unique key 

appln_auth The office where patent was filed

year Filing year 

process Indicator variable equal to 1, if patent is process patent

product Indicator variable equal to 1, if patent is product patent

both Indicator variable equal to 1, if patent is both process and product patent

File “procprod_us.csv” provides the process and product categorisation for all USPTO patents and includes the following variables:

Variable name   Definition

patnum Patent number

process Indicator variable equal to 1, if patent is process patent

product Indicator variable equal to 1, if patent is product patent

File “publicfirm_patents.csv” provides the categorisation for USPTO patents of US listed firms and includes the following variables:

Variable name   Definition

patnum Patent number

permno Company permno

idate Patent issue date

fdate Patent filing date

process Indicator variable equal to 1, if patent is process patent

product Indicator variable equal to 1, if patent is product patent

both Indicator variable equal to 1, if patent is both process and product patent

found Indicator variable equal to 1, if patent is foundational process patent

costredu Indicator variable equal to 1, if patent is cost-reduction process patent

btprod Indicator variable equal to 1, if patent is breakthrough product patent

otherprod Indicator variable equal to 1, if patent is any other product patent

Contact:

Please contact any of the authors for questions regarding the data: Baslandze (baslandze.salome@gmail.com),  Liu (leo.liu@uts.edu.au), Sojli (e.sojli@unsw.edu.au), Tham (w.tham@unsw.edu.au).