EMPIRICS---COVID decreased patent applications.
Gzybowski’ 22 [Michael; Michael S. Gzybowski is Senior Counsel in Dykema’s Intellectual Property and Litigation Practice groups; “It’s Not Just COVID: Understanding the Drop in U.S. Patent Application Filings,” IP Watchdog, https://ipwatchdog.com/2022/02/09/its-not-just-covid-understanding-the-drop-in-u-s-patent-application-filings/id=145491/#, wally]
All things being equal, one would expect that the coronavirus pandemic would have the same or similar effect on patent application filings in all countries and would not cause a decrease in U.S. patent application filings while causing an increase in worldwide patent application filings.
While the coronavirus pandemic initially caused adjustments in budgeting, workforce and workplace attendance, it seems that something before the pandemic caused a decrease in the number of patent applications that were filed in the U.S. back in 2017, while worldwide patent applications increased by 5.8% in the same year.