Method notes
What the six pillars measure, and what they do not
Each pillar answers one narrow question about a filing record. Read together they describe a practice; read singly they are easy to misread.
Prof. dr. Mindaugas Kiškis, Chief Research Officer, Socialiniai algoritmai, UAB · · 3 min read
In short
- Six pillars: experience, initial success, relative efficiency, asset durability, renewal survival and local applicant share.
- Every pillar is computed inside one cohort, so the comparison is always like with like.
- Small samples are shrunk toward the cohort median, which is why a perfect record on few cases does not produce a top rating.
- Local applicant share is descriptive, not a quality measure. High and low are both defensible positions.
A rating that is one number is hard to argue with and hard to trust. IPRATE publishes six component measures alongside the tier, so that a reader can see which part of a record produced it. This note says what each one is, and what it is not.
All six are computed inside a single cohort: one country, one practice area, one filing track, one time window. Nothing below compares a firm in one country with a firm in another.
Experience
The volume of real, finished case work in the cohort. Not applications filed, but matters that reached a determinate state, so that a firm cannot raise this measure by filing applications it never prosecutes.
What it is not: a measure of the size of the firm, or of revenue. A three-person practice that files steadily for twenty years can carry more cohort experience than a large firm whose IP work is occasional.
Initial success
Of the matters mature enough to have a first outcome, the share reaching a positive one. For trademarks that is registration without a fatal refusal; for patents, a positive first substantive step.
What it is not: a promise. Different practices attract different difficulty. A firm that takes the marginal applications other firms decline will show a lower initial success rate while doing better work on each one. This is the pillar most in need of the others as context.
Relative efficiency
How long successful matters take, against the cohort, controlling for the kind of matter. Time to a positive outcome is partly the office's and partly the representative's, and the comparison inside a cohort removes most of the office's contribution.
What it is not: a measure of responsiveness to the client. It measures procedural progress, not how quickly anyone answers an email.
Asset durability
Whether granted rights stay granted. Cancellations, successful invalidations and early lapses reduce it.
What it is not: attributable entirely to the representative. An owner who stops paying, or abandons a brand, lapses a right for reasons no representative controls. Over enough matters this noise averages out, which is why the pillar is only published above a case threshold.
Renewal and maintenance survival
Whether rights under a firm's care are renewed on time and kept alive. This is the one pillar that measures administrative reliability rather than legal skill, and it is the one clients notice only when it fails.
What it is not: a client-loyalty measure. Portfolios move between firms, and a transfer out is not a failure.
Local applicant share
The share of a firm's cohort work done for applicants from the firm's own country.
This pillar is descriptive. It is displayed because it answers a real question for a foreign client, and it is deliberately not scored as better or worse. A firm with a high local share is embedded in its domestic market; a firm with a lower share sees more inbound instructions from abroad. Both are legitimate practices.
Why small samples are pulled toward the middle
Every pillar estimate is adjusted toward the cohort median in proportion to how little evidence supports it. A firm with several hundred finished matters keeps almost its raw value. A firm with a dozen is moved substantially toward the middle.
This is the single design decision that most shapes the published result. Without it, the top of every ranking would be occupied by firms with four cases and a lucky run, which is what a ranking looks like when it optimises for surprising results rather than for being right. With it, a top tier means a firm performed well and did so often enough for the performance to be measurable.
Reading the six together
A firm high on experience and durability but middling on initial success is probably taking harder work. A firm high on initial success and efficiency with modest experience is probably filing clean, straightforward applications well. A firm high on renewal survival and low elsewhere is probably a maintenance practice.
None of these is a verdict. They are descriptions of a filing record, and the tier is a summary of them within one cohort, carrying a confidence grade that says how much separation the underlying evidence supports.
Sources
Questions this piece answers
Is a higher local applicant share better?
No. It is a description of where a firm's work comes from. A high share indicates a domestic practice close to its own office; a lower share indicates more inbound foreign work. Which one suits a client depends on the client.
Why does a firm with a perfect grant rate not reach the top tier?
Because the estimate is shrunk toward the cohort median in proportion to how little evidence supports it. A perfect record over a handful of cases carries little information, and the method says so rather than rewarding it.
Do the pillars have fixed weights?
The weighting is part of the published methodology and is owner-controlled, not tuned per country or per firm. It is versioned, and every rating states the methodology version it was computed under.
About the author
Prof. dr. Mindaugas Kiškis
Chief Research Officer, Socialiniai algoritmai, UAB
Mindaugas Kiškis authored the IPRATE rating methodology and leads the research project behind it at Mykolas Romeris University. He works on intellectual property, technology law and the measurement of professional performance from administrative records.