The USPTO Cancer Moonshot Patent Data contains detailed information on published patent applications and granted patents relevant to cancer research and development (R&D). We generate the dataset using USPTO examiner tools to execute a series of queries designed to identify cancer-specific patents and patent applications. We apply several approaches to ensure coverage of the various fields and subject matter that cancer-related innovations encompass. These include drugs, diagnostics, surgical devices, data analytics, and genomic-based inventions. The final dataset consist of roughly 270,000 patent documents spanning the 1976 to 2016 period. For this final set, we compile key patent data fields, including patent number, title, classification, and grant date. We also construct a set of fields to indicate whether the invention falls within certain high-level technology categories. We then combine the dataset with two external data sources – the National Institutes of Health Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools (RePORTER) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations, commonly known as the Orange Book – to facilitate users seeking to link data on cancer-related patents to data on upstream funding and R&D as well as downstream commercialization efforts.
A document describing these data is available(link is external) and can be cited as: Frumkin, Jesse and Myers, Amanda F., Cancer Moonshot Patent Data (August, 2016).
For questions, please email EconomicsData@uspto.gov.
Data files
Additional resources
- The White House Cancer Moonshot webpage
- USPTO Supporting the White House Cancer Moonshot Initiative
- For the latest and current cancer information, visit the National Institute of Health (NIH) website
- How to query Patents Public Search for the Cancer Moonshot initiative: A resource for continuously monitoring and analyzing cancer-related patent documents using the tool of your choice, such as Patents Public Search