Citizen science: A form of open collaboration in which individuals or organizations participate voluntarily in scientific progress.

Copyright: A legal protection for original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical, architectural, cartographic, choreographic, pantomimic, pictorial, graphic, sculptural, and audiovisual creations. Definition from U.S. Copyright Office, https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/definitions.html. Accessed March 2021.

Design patent: A grant of a property right to an inventor to protect the visual ornamental characteristics of an article of manufacture.

Economic sectors: Economic activity is organized in national economic accounts into four sectors: business, government, nonprofits serving households, and households. This organization has also been recommended for innovation statistics (OECD Eurostat 2018). In the statistical data in this report, public universities and private nonprofit universities are shown together as academic institutions. The term individuals refers to the household economic sector.

European Union (EU): The EU comprises 27 member nations: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden. As of 2020, the United Kingdom is not a member of the EU. Several figures show the EU 27 plus the United Kingdom.

Innovation: A new or improved product or process (or combination thereof) that differs significantly from the unit’s previous products or processes and that has been made available to potential users (product) or brought into use by the unit (process). The unit is a generic term to describe the actor responsible for innovations. It refers to any institutional unit in any sector, including households and their individual members, according to the Oslo Manual, Revision 4 (OECD Eurostat 2018).

Intellectual property: Creations of the mind including inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce. Industrial intellectual property includes patents, utility models, trademarks, and industrial designs. Intellectual property covered by copyright includes literary, artistic, and musical works. Available at https://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/. Accessed March 2021.

International patents: These are original patents that have been issued by any international jurisdiction, adjusted to count only the first issuance of a series or family of related patents. The unit of measurement is a patent family that shares a single original invention in common. All subsequent patents in a family refer to the first patent filed, or priority patent and the indicator provides an unduplicated count of original or priority patents in any individual jurisdiction.

Invention: Any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office 2020).

Knowledge transfer: The process by which technology or knowledge developed in one place or for one purpose is applied and used in another place for the same or a different purpose. This transfer can occur freely or through exchange and be deliberate or unintentional. Technology transfer represents a specific case of knowledge transfer that involves the transfer of knowledge embedded in technology.

Mask work: “A series of related images, however fixed or encoded (1) that have or represent the predetermined three-dimensional pattern of metallic, insulating, or semiconductor material present or removed from the layers of a semiconductor chip product; and (2) in which series the relation of the images to one another is that each image has the pattern of the surface of one form of the semiconductor chip product.” The definition is provided in the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act (SCPA) of 1984. Available at https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ100.pdf. Accessed March 2021.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): An international organization headquartered in Paris, France. At the time of publication, the 38 member countries are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Among its many activities, OECD compiles social, economic, and science and technology (S&T) statistics for all member and selected nonmember countries.

Patent family: See international patents.

Patenting intensity: Number of patents per population in a geographic location.

Priority patent: The first patent filed in a family of subsequent patents that refers to the original patent. The original filing may be domestic or from another jurisdiction.

Technical field in patents: Chemistry: Biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, organic fine chemistry, microstructural and nanotechnology, chemical engineering, macromolecular chemistry and polymers, basic materials chemistry, materials, metallurgy, surface technology, coating, environmental technology, food chemistry. Electrical engineering: Computer technology, electrical machinery, apparatus and energy, semiconductors, digital communication, telecommunications, audio-visual technology, basic communication processes, IT methods for management. Mechanical engineering: Other special machines, engines, pumps, and turbines, transport, mechanical elements, machine tools, textile and paper machines, thermal processes and apparatus, handling. Instruments: Medical technology, measurement, analysis of biological materials, optics, control. Other categories: Civil engineering, other consumer goods, furniture, games.

Technology transfer: The process by which technology or knowledge developed in one place or for one purpose is applied and exploited in another place or for another purpose. In the federal setting, technology transfer is the process by which existing knowledge, facilities, or capabilities developed under federal R&D funding are used to fulfill public and private needs.

Trademark: A word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination thereof, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others. In this report, trademark refers to both goods and services.

Trade secret: Information that fulfills all of the following requirements, as defined by the USPTO: “Either actual or potential independent economic value by virtue of not being generally known, has value to others who cannot legitimately obtain the information, and is subject to reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy.” Available at https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/trade-secret-policy. Accessed March 2021.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) patent: As defined by the USPTO, a property right granted by the U.S. government to an inventor “to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States” for a limited time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention when the patent is granted. Available at https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/glossary. Accessed 15 June 2021.

Utility patent: Intellectual property protection for a potentially useful, previously unknown, and non-obvious invention.

Young firm: A business enterprise that is 5 years old or younger.

ABS: Annual Business Survey

COVID-19: Coronavirus Disease 2019

CRADA: Cooperative R&D Agreement

DOC: Department of Commerce

DOD: Department of Defense

DOE: Department of Energy

EPO: European Patent Office

EU: European Union

INPADOC: International Patent Documentation

MERS: Middle East respiratory syndrome

mRNA: Messenger Ribonucleic Acid

NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NCSES: National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics

NSF: National Science Foundation

OECD: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

OSS: Open-Source Software

PCT: Patent Cooperation Treaty

R&D: Research and Development

S&E: Science and Engineering

SARS: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

SBIR: Small Business Innovation Research

STTR: Small Business Technology Transfer

UK: United Kingdom

USDA: U.S. Department of Agriculture

USPTO: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

WIPO: World Intellectual Property Organization

WIR: Women Inventor Rate