INPACT-S (V2.2 6/2026)
Abstract
Our novel International Patent and Citations across Sectors (INPACT-S) database tracks cross-border and domestic patent flows across industries over four decades. INPACT-S is more comprehensive than other publicly available datasets along five key dimensions:(i) It encompasses a wider array of patent authorities, offering a full view of global patent activity; (ii) it provides industry-specific bilateral data, allowing to do sectoral analysis; (iii) it captures a greater number of patent applications through imputation methods; (iv) it includes comprehensive data on cross-country and cross-sector citation data; and (v) it includes consistently constructed data on cross-border and domestic patents.
Code: The INPACT-S construction code is available upon request. Please email me to ask.
Version history
V2.2 (June 2026) is the current release. The major version identifies the PATSTAT source vintage, and the subversion identifies changes to the construction method within that vintage:
- V1.x uses PATSTAT Autumn 2021; V2.x uses PATSTAT Spring 2024.
- x.0 uses the original construction method.
- x.1 adds the first-and-subsequent-filings bridge method.
- x.2 also retains applications that have no IPC classification.
| Version | PATSTAT vintage | Construction method | Main difference from the preceding release |
|---|---|---|---|
| V1.0 | Autumn 2021 | Original method | First public version of INPACT-S. |
| V2.0 | Spring 2024 | Original method | Updates the underlying PATSTAT vintage and extends the available filing-year coverage. |
| V2.1 | Spring 2024 | Bridge method | Adds a first-and-subsequent-filings bridge: when an application’s origin is missing, it is recovered from a related priority or parent application with a known country. |
| V2.2 | Spring 2024 | Bridge method plus no-IPC recovery | Retains applications that have no IPC code instead of dropping them, and assigns them to an explicit Unknown sector (ISIC code 99). |
Reproducibility note. One origin-imputation step uses WIPO aggregate patent data, which WIPO revises over time, so using a different WIPO vintage can produce small differences. The V2 releases use WIPO data downloaded in November 2025. Rebuilding V1.0 with newer Stata versions also produces small technical differences, because the newer import engine handles malformed quotation marks more reliably.
Media coverage: INPACT-S was introduced in the VoxEU column “ Determinants and impact of cross-border patents: Evidence from a new dataset,” February 2024.
Jesse LaBelle
Fourth-Year Economics PhD Candidate
Jesse LaBelle is a fourth-year PhD Candidate in the Northwestern University Economics Department.