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Patent statistics as indicators of innovative activities: Possibilities and problems

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Abstract

Advances in information technology have increased actual and potential uses of patent statistics as proxy measures of innovative activities. Analytical contributions have come out of economics, bibliometrics, and descriptive comparisons for policy purposes. They show achievement of promise in analysing (1) international patterns of innovative activities and their effects on trade and production; (2) patterns of innovative activities amongst firms, and their effects on firm performance and industrial structure; (3) rates and directions of innovative activities in different technical fields and industrial sectors; (4) links between science and technology.

However, systematic biases remain in patent statistics, the full assessment of which require further econometric, classificatory and survey research.

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  1. Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, UK

    K. Pavitt

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A preliminary version of this paper was prepared for the session entitled “New Approaches to Technology Strategy: Using Patent Data”, held at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Detroit, 30th May, 1983. It grows out of the research programme at the Science Policy Research Unit on innovation and industrial competitiveness, financed by the Leverhulme Trust. I thank H.Kronz, B.Martin and S.Wyatt for helpful criticisms and suggestions on earlier versions.

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Pavitt, K. Patent statistics as indicators of innovative activities: Possibilities and problems. Scientometrics 7, 77–99 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02020142

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