Well, you can! Using the filter
categories "Applicants - Country" or "Inventors - Country"
in Espacenet, you can find applicants or inventors who reside in a certain
country. The procedure and example below show you how to get this information
for applicants, but the same principle also applies to inventors.
1. Run a search in a certain
technical field. For example, use Smart search and search "3D
printing" in titles, abstracts, descriptions or claims published between 2010
and 2020 
ftxt="3D
printing" 2010:2020.
2. Display the Filters area
by activating the Filters slider in the main navigation bar (or selecting
the 
icon at high zoom levels or on your
mobile device).
3. Select the drop-down arrow on the right of the Applicants - Country filter category to open the corresponding list of filter items.
4. Select the country where you would like to find applicants related to your search query, e.g. DE for an applicant from Germany.
5. Click Apply
The updated results list will show you patent documents where Germany was identified as the applicant's country of residence.
Please note:
The country of residence is not
always included in the data received by the EPO, so its coverage in our
databases is not 100% complete. In our example, out of the 82 479 results
obtained for the query ftxt="3D
printing" 2010:2020, only around
30% of the results had an identified applicant country of residence. Therefore,
care should be taken when drawing conclusions from statistics based on applicant
or inventor residence information.
