Patent databases are a great source for understanding how a particular technology is evolving and what companies are investing real dollars behind it. Patent filing has exponentially grown showing increased belief in it.However given time frames of years involved in filling to publishing to granting a patent does this data help as a lead indicator or lag indicator? Products take a long time too to get released so is the granting time in some sense irrelevant? Does the answer vary by industry... long cycle industries like aircraft vs short cycle like mobiles?