Frequently Asked Questions
What is PatentsView and where does the data come from?
PatentsView is a research platform developed in partnership with the USPTO that provides cleaned, disambiguated bulk data from the US patent grant database. PlainPatent downloads PatentsView bulk data files covering patent grants from 2015 to 2025, including assignee information, CPC technology classifications, and citation data.
What does a company's patent count actually tell you?
Patent counts measure how much patentable innovation output a company produces, but not innovation quality or business value. A company might hold 10,000 patents covering incremental improvements to existing products, while another holds 100 patents that define entirely new technology categories. PlainPatent shows counts and technology diversity as data points — not rankings of innovation quality.
What is CPC classification?
The Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) is a hierarchical patent categorization system developed jointly by the USPTO and European Patent Office. Each patent is assigned one or more CPC codes identifying its technical domain — from broad sections (like H for Electricity) down to specific subgroups (like H04L 9/32 for protocols ensuring message confidentiality). PlainPatent uses CPC subgroup counts to measure technology diversity.
How does PlainPatent calculate technology diversity?
Technology diversity is the count of distinct CPC subgroup codes (4-character level) in a company's patent portfolio. A company with patents spread across 400 different CPC subgroups has a higher diversity score than one with all patents in 5 closely related subgroups. Higher diversity can indicate a broad R&D strategy; lower diversity suggests deep specialization.
Why does my company show fewer patents than I expected?
PlainPatent uses data from 2015–2025 patent grants only. Patents filed before 2015 or granted after the latest data update are not included. Additionally, patents filed under subsidiary company names may appear under a different assignee. PatentsView's disambiguation handles many of these cases but is not perfect.
Does PlainPatent include pending patent applications?
No. PlainPatent covers granted patents only. Patent applications are not included because they may take 2–4 years to be granted or rejected. A company's application pipeline can be viewed through the USPTO's Patent Full-Text Database (USPTO.gov).
Is PlainPatent affiliated with the USPTO?
No. PlainPatent is an independent data portal and is not affiliated with the US Patent and Trademark Office, PatentsView, or any government agency. We use publicly available PatentsView data under its Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.