Diagnosing COVID-19: A perspective from U.S. patenting activity

The United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Office of the Chief Economist released a report revealing that small companies and universities led the way in developing inventions to diagnose COVID-19, as evidenced by patent applications filed at the USPTO through April 2023.
The U.S. federal government helped spur this invention, with 10.7% of COVID-19 diagnostic public filings receiving support. The National Institutes of Health provided the most assistance (about 64%), while the National Science Foundation provided the second most, at 21.59%. Although COVID-19 diagnostic invention was highly concentrated in a few technologies, 8.6% of these inventions were also applicable to the treatment of COVID-19. Among 5,585 global COVID-19 diagnostic patent families found in this study, 47% have at least one filing at the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), the most of any jurisdiction.