What this article covers
- Explains what the Reporting Date is in PatentSight+ and how it represents a point-in-time view of a patent portfolio.
- Clarifies how the Reporting Date works in search, where it defines which patent families and data are included.
- Shows how Reporting Date is used in charts and tables to analyse trends and track portfolio development over time, & a short video showing how this works in practice.
- Explains how the Reporting Date influences all metrics and insights by defining the dataset used for analysis.
- Clarifies key concepts and limitations, including historical snapshots, available dates, and how Reporting Date differs from other time-based metrics.
What is the Reporting Date Concept?
Where is Reporting Date applied in PatentSight+?
Applying the Reporting Date in Searches, and Charts & Tables
Reporting Date and Your Analyses (Video)
What is the Reporting Date?
At its core, the reporting date in PatentSight+ is a way to answer a simple business question: “What did this patent portfolio look like at a specific point in time?”
It allows you to move beyond a static, present-day view and instead understand how a portfolio looked, performed, and evolved, whether that’s today, last year, or a decade ago.
Where is Reporting Date applied in PatentSight+?
There are two ways to think about reporting date, depending on how you are using it:
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1. Reporting Date in Search The reporting date in search defines what is included. When you set a reporting date in the search, you are effectively saying “Show me the world as it existed at this point in time.” This determines:
This is about choosing the baseline for your analysis.
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2. Reporting Date in Charts and Tables The reporting date in charts and tables shows how things change over time. When reporting date is used in charts or tables, it allows you to view and ask “How has this portfolio evolved over time?” Each point in a chart reflects the portfolio as it existed at that moment. From a business standpoint, this is about tracking trends, such as:
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The most important concept is that the Reporting Date in search defines your dataset. Everything else (charts, metrics, insights) builds on that foundation.
This means the choice of reporting date directly influences the size and composition of the portfolio, the values of all performance indicators and the strategic conclusions you draw.
Applying the Reporting Date in Searches and Charts & Tables
Search Panel:
To apply a past Reporting Date to your search results to "travel back in time," click on the Reporting Date displayed at the bottom of the search panel and select a Reporting Date of interest.
Select a past Reporting Date to retrieve data from a different point in time. For each past Reporting Date, only patent families that were active and would have matched the search criteria at that date will be included in the search results.
Note:
Since the past Reporting Dates only take into consideration patent families that were active at that point in time, it is not possible to select a past Reporting Date and, at the same time, include inactive patent families.
Tip:
To apply the Reporting Date selected to all sheets in your workbook, open the section "Options" in the main toolbar and click on "Apply Reporting Date to All Sheets".
Charts and Tables:
Past Reporting Dates can also be displayed in charts and tables. The Reporting Date can be used to retrieve historical data from a past point in time and to perform trend analyses to track changes over time.
Chart Templates
The analysis template "Patent Asset Index Trend" below shows how the Patent Asset Index of a given portfolio has developed over time. (It shows the Patent Asset Index of all patent families that were active at each point in time.) It is calculated as the sum of the Competitive Impact (Market Coverage x Technology Relevance) of all these patent families at the respective point in time. Click here to learn more about this chart.
Another example for the use of the Reporting Date in a chart are the bubble trails shown below, that can be displayed in bubble charts. Each bubble in the trail represents one Reporting Date, with the decreasing transparency signifying how the data has developed over time. Click here to learn more about this chart.
Customize Charts
Above we chose charts that already include the measure 'Reporting Date', but you can also customize existing charts to apply one of the attributes "Reporting Date" or "Reporting Date (Year)" by clicking directly on axis labels (see below). You can then switch out existing measures for 'Reporting Date', or for more options, click 'Open General Chart Settings':
To learn more about editing charts, click here.
Customize Tables
You can also add the attribute "Reporting Date" to a table as shown below, to obtain an overview of the exact values per each date. Click here to learn more about this table.
To add Reporting Date as a vertical grouping or measure to a table (in the example above, Reporting Date is. a measure; the table is grouped by Owner as a vertical grouping):
Access the configuration via the gearwheel icon, and you can: |
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| Add a vertical grouping or measure. | |
| Remove a vertical grouping or measure via the bin icon next to it. | |
| Browse for a suitable vertical grouping or measure (after selecting the plus icon) | |
| Select a suitable vertical grouping or measure from categorized options. |
Click here to learn more about editing tables.
Reporting Date and Your Analyses (Video)
This video introduces the Reporting Date concept and demonstrates how reporting date is applied in practice across different parts of the platform:
- Search: Users can select a reporting date to view the size and composition of a portfolio at a specific moment in time.
- Charts: Reporting date can be used to visualize how portfolios evolve over time, for example by tracking portfolio size trends across multiple years.
- Tables: It can be used as a grouping dimension to show how metrics (such as portfolio size or citations) develop over time.
- Drill-down analysis: Users can select a specific reporting date from a chart or table and explore the underlying dataset for that moment in time.
Through examples, the video highlights how companies’ portfolios can grow, plateau, or decline over time, reinforcing the value of analyzing trends rather than static snapshots.
Key Takeaways
Think of reporting date as a strategic lens.
Past Reporting Date
- Use a past reporting date to understand historical position and decision context
- Past reporting date = looking at an old balance sheet from 2019
Today's Reporting Date
- Use today’s reporting date to understand current strength and future potential
- Today’s reporting date = looking at only the assets from 2019 that are still on your books today
Charts and Datasets incorporating Reporting Date
- Use charts with reporting date to understand how the story unfolded over time
Choosing the right lens ensures you are answering the right business question, not just looking at the right data.
FAQs
How is the current Reporting Date determined?
The current Reporting Date represents the most up-to-date view of the patent landscape. It reflects the present state of the world and is updated on a weekly basis as the PatentSight database is refreshed.
What past Reporting Dates are available?
Past Reporting Dates are fixed snapshots taken at the end of each year (December 31). Currently, Reporting Dates are available for each year going back to 2000, providing over two decades of historical reference points. Note that Reporting Dates are limited to these predefined options only.
What does the Reporting Date control in my analysis?
The Reporting Date determines the point in time at which the patent portfolio is evaluated. It defines both:
- Which patent families are included
- What data is used to calculate metrics
In effect, it sets the foundation for your entire analysis. Note that only patent families that were active at the selected Reporting Date are included.
Which patent families are included for a selected Reporting Date?
Only patent families that were active at the selected Reporting Date are included.
A patent family is considered active if it has at least one member that is:
- A pending application, or
- An in-force (granted and active) patent
What information is used when calculating metrics for a Reporting Date?
In addition to active families, all metrics are calculated using only the information that was available at the selected point in time including citation data and any additional information used to calculate our indicators.
This ensures that analyses reflect the reality of that specific moment, not hindsight. Selecting a past Reporting Date effectively recreates the patent landscape as it existed at that time.
For example:
- Patent families published after that date are excluded
- Metrics are calculated using data and economic context from that year
The only exception is patent ownership information: For any given Reporting Date, the owner of a patent family is always the current Ultimate Owner, even if the patent family had belonged to a different entity in the past.
Moreover, in cases where we receive data that should have been available at a past date or where data has been corrected, information may change retrospectively.
Can I reproduce past analyses at a later date?
In some cases, if new data becomes available that should have been included historically, or if existing data is corrected, past analyses may be updated retrospectively. This ensures overall data accuracy, even for historical views.
This does mean that since patent data is "alive" and the PatentSight database is constantly being updated and improved, the exact reproduction of analysis results from the past may not be possible at a later point in time.
However, you can save your analysis results by using one of PatentSight’s Export Options. It may also be useful to regularly apply Tags and Tagging to sets of patent families obtained as search results and used in your analyses. This will allow you to always keep track of the patent population used for a past analysis or found by a past search, even if the legal status, ownership, or evaluation of these patent families have changed over time.
How does Reporting Date affect metrics like Market Coverage?
Metrics are calculated using the context of the selected Reporting Date.
For example:
- Market Coverage is calculated using the GNI values from that specific year, not current values
This ensures that results are consistent with the economic and data environment of that time.
How does the Reporting Date differ from Publication, Priority or Filing Date?
The current reporting date shows the state of the world as it is now.
If you select a reporting date in the past, this selects that moment in time to evaluate the patent portfolio - only patent families that were active at that date are taken into consideration for the analysis. The only thing to consider is that the Ultimate Owner concept is still applied, meaning that the current owner is applied even if the patent family had belonged to a different entity in the past.
If your interested in analysing publication date, priority date and/or filing date, these can be analysed within any report. If you apply an earlier reporting date, you're simply taking a set of patent families at that snapshot in time in order to evaluate these other metrics.
To explore these metrics, you can either add a time filter to the search in order to only look at patent families published within a particular time frame for example -
Select the 'time' filter at the top, to add this to your search:
Or, you can evaluate these metrics in various charts and tables within your analysis:
For more information on the Reporting Date concept, or to explore other metrics in your report, please do reach out to the Customer Success team here.