Patent statistics in the age of globalisation: new legal procedures, new analytical methods, new economic interpretation

doi:10.1016/S0048-7333(98)00125-5

Research Policy

Volume 28, Issue 4, April 1999, Pages 377-396

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0048-7333(98)00125-5 Get rights and content

Abstract

Patent analysis seems to become more difficult in the age of globalisation. Starting from microlevel observations, it is evident that multinational enterprises pursue different technological, marketing and strategic aims. In effect, they cover world markets in a distinctly different manner with patent intellectual property. This article, in good economic tradition, starts with consideration of recent microlevel patent behaviour in telecommunications before new macroeconomic procedures to measure technical change are outlined. The new challenges to patent statistics comprise the assignment of countries to patent documents of multinational firms, the appropriate use of economic `filters' in comparing patent statistics from various patent offices, the fitting of the new international patent procedures offered by the amended Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) to national statistics, the assignment of patent applications in case of withdrawn country destinations and the estimation of time series if most recent data sets are incomplete. We propose consistent, workable adjustments to patent statistics that overcome the above-mentioned biases, which we denote the `triad patent model', for measuring technical progress in the proper economic sense. First applications deal with the assessment of the pace of technical change in major countries up until 1995. In conclusion we discuss problems for future research. The main policy implication is that macroeconomic patent statistics can correct for the effects of global knowledge production, indeed, as these are not disruptive but rather limited and well accountable.

Section snippets

Starting point: patent strategies of a modern multinational enterprise

It is a good tradition in economics, to base macroeconomic analysis on microlevel observations. On this level, for most economists and business administration researchers, a patent is what it is for lawyers, a legal document. It helps a firm in appropriating innovation rents as technology is a (latent) public good (Nelson, 1990). At least, it `protects' the inventing firm from other firms' appropriation of that technology. What interests us in patent econometrics is the quality of the output of

Macroeconomic assignment of patents by countries

In Section 1, it has been shown by way of introduction that because of the increasing role of globalisation in particular by multinational enterprises (MNEs) the assignment of `countries of invention' is no more a trivial task. In the literature, three different theoretical foundations for assignment of data may be found.

Economic `filters' in comparative patent statistics

Private or corporate research generally produces patents rather than academic publications. Patent statistics are an accepted output indicator for codified knowledge from strategic and applied research and industrial development. However, the economic value of any one patent is difficult to determine⁹ and, what is more problematic, the average patent value differs considerably between countries

Growing popularity of delayed patent decisions

The latest `innovation' in patent procedures is the establishment of an international access to protection by the PCT in 1978. The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) enables firms with international marketing expectations to proceed as follows (Schmoch, 1998). First, a single document is filed in the PCT system and at this moment no translation nor the payment of national fees is required. The firm designates in which of the PCT signatory states patent application shall be made

The pace of technical progress up to the 1990s: the empirical evidence reconsidered

In the following analysis, an attempt is made to estimate the rate of technical progress by looking at patterns and trends across the three patenting systems: EPO, USPTO and TC. The analysis presents the evolution of those, usually technologically very important, patents filed simultaneously under all three systems. Thus, we try to reconsider the empirical evidence in an unbiased way using the triad `filter' from Section 3.

Fig. 8 shows the evolution of TP per million employees during the period

Discussion of the policy relevance of refined patent statistics

We close this article by providing an example that points to the policy relevance of non-compensation of selectivity. In several recent publications on overall trends in technology dynamics it was argued that since about 1988 innovation dynamics in US enterprises developed extra-ordinarily positively whereas in about the same time period there was stagnation in Germany and a decline in Japan.²² In our

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the financial support of the Federal German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Bonn, and to Mr. E. Beyer personally, Section Head of Economic Affairs, for the opportunity to work on technology performance indicators and to annually produce a related report. In this framework, it has been possible to elaborate the new patent methods introduced in this article to an international audience. We are also grateful for quite detailed comments of two referees and

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Patent statistics in the age of globalisation: new legal procedures, new analytical methods, new economic interpretation

Abstract

Section snippets

Starting point: patent strategies of a modern multinational enterprise

Macroeconomic assignment of patents by countries

Economic `filters' in comparative patent statistics

Growing popularity of delayed patent decisions

The pace of technical progress up to the 1990s: the empirical evidence reconsidered

Discussion of the policy relevance of refined patent statistics

Acknowledgements

The dynamics of international competitiveness

Weltwirtschaftliches Arch.

Early identification of technological advances on the basis of patent data

Scientometrics

The national system of innovation in historical perspective

Cambridge Journal of Economics

Patent statistics as economic indicators: a survey

Journal of Economic Literature

Science, high technology and the competitiveness of EU countries

Cambridge Journal of Economics

Econometric models for count data with an application to the Patents—R&D relationship

Econometrica