Imperfect indicators

These are factors behind practically all of our data points, insofar as individual data points, grouped en masse, serve in the elucidation of broader and deeper trends.

• From the outset, and perhaps most fundamentally, the relation of patents filed, to the deeper or more ideal principle of innovation, is a key example.
• Quantities of patents, their titles, elucidation of technical specifics, the manner in which these are categorized, pertinent data on locations; all of these gauged factors, and indeed many more, in their relevance to observed trends in qualitative data, are "imperfect", though valuable in the aggregate, particularly when ideally structured.