Assessment of technological capability in science industry linkage in China by patent database

doi:10.1016/j.wpi.2007.10.006

World Patent Information

Volume 30, Issue 3, September 2008, Pages 225-232

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wpi.2007.10.006 Get rights and content

Abstract

In this paper, China’s development of innovation capabilities is examined by using the Chinese patent database. In order to provide an overall assessment of technological development, a patent database is developed by using individual patent information from State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO). This database covers 679,056 invention patents from 1985 to 2005 with the information of dates of application, technology type, applicant name and location.

As well as providing an overview of patent activities, this paper also sheds light on science and industry linkage activities. Such activities can be tracked by joint patent application by science sector (universities or public research institutions) and industry sector (firms). It is found that the firm’s collaboration with universities are increasing, while that with public research institutions slows down.

Introduction

The Chinese economy grows at an astonishing speed, and now serves as an engine of growth of the world economy. In process of economic development, Chinese firms are capitalizing on cheap and abundant labor supply, but they are also gaining technological capabilities for innovation. Some Chinese companies have already set up their global operation facilities not only in developing countries, but also in the US and Europe. There are a lot of anecdotal stories of individual companies, such as Haier, Huawei Technology and Lenovo, but a systematic analysis of China’s technological capabilities is very rare. In this paper, a patent database is used for an overall assessment of technological development of China.

Patent data is extensively used in the analysis of innovation in developed economies. In the Unites States, NBER patent database based on the USPTO patent information opened up the possibility for researchers to work on comprehensive patent information over decades for a whole country [1], [2]. In Japan, a similar type of database has been developed based on published patent information from the Japanese Patent Office [3]. Furthermore, EPO has made a significant effort to prepare for world patent database, called PATSTAT, by using the information from DOC-DB database, a database used for international search by patent examiners.

In this paper, the same type of patent database has been developed by using patent information from the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), PRC. Aggregated patent statistics, such as the number of patent application and registration, are regularly published in the Chinese Intellectual Property Yearbook [4], and these data are used for official publication of science and technology indicators by the Ministry of Science and Technology [5]. In addition, there are some empirical studies by using Chinese patent statistics [6], [7], but they are all based on published aggregated data. In this paper, an individual patent information database is created, which allows us to make more detailed patent analysis.

The main objective of this paper is to describe general trend of invention patent activities in China by applicant country and technology, in order to understand relative technological capabilities of Chinese inventors. In addition, an analysis of science and industry linkage activities is provided. The information on joint application by science sector (universities or public research institutes) and industry sector (firms) in the same patent suggests that both parties work together for this invention. Careful observation of these patents gives significant amount of information on how science and industry activities work in China.

This paper consists of five sections including this introduction. The next section is for describing our analytical dataset based on individual patent information from SIPO. This is followed by a section for assessment of technological development of China. In China, the number of patent application rises sharply after 2000, and a steady increase of domestic application is also observed at the same time. Detail description of the structure of patent application and registration is provided in this section. Then, an analysis of science and industry linkage, based on the information on joint application, is presented in Section 4. Finally, this paper concludes with summary of observations and future steps of our work.

Section snippets

Dataset

In this paper, an individual patent database is developed by using patent information commercially available from State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), PRC is used. There are three types of patent in Chinese system, i.e., invention patent, utility models and design. Invention patent requires the highest technological contents, which can be compared with patent rights in developed countries. Therefore, we use only invention patent information for construction of our analytical database. Our

Overview of patenting activities in China

A first question raised from this database is where this patent application surge comes from, whether domestic or international applicants. This is a quite relevant aspect in a sense of assessing technology capabilities in China. Fig. 1 shows a trend of patent applications by country as an origin of application. A sharp increase in patent applications can be seen from 2000, for both domestic and international applications. A surge of domestic applications reflects growing technological

Analysis of science and industry linkages

Patent database can be used to analyze collaborative research by using the inventor information. In many cases, invention takes place by a group of people working together, and multiple inventors are recorded in the information of such patent. However, only information of inventor name is available in the Chinese patent database, and there is no information on the address or the affiliates of each inventor. Therefore, there is no clue to identify different people with the same name, and this

Conclusion

In this paper, China’s technological capabilities are assessed by using Chinese patent database. In both patent application and registration, the share of domestic applicants is gradually increasing, which reflects upgrading of technological capabilities in China. In term of the type of applicants, both universities and firms gain the share, while individual investors and public research institutions lose. This may be due to the fact that more strict rule for employer’s right ownership of its

Acknowledgements

Financial supports from JETRO and NEDO are acknowledged. Author would like to thank also for Yoichi Gotani and Yoshihisa Tabata for their useful comments and Yoonyoung Kim for her research assistance.

Kazuyuki Motohashi is Professor, Department of Technology Management for Innovation (TMI), University of Tokyo and Faculty Fellow of Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry. Until this year, he had worked for Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of the Japanese Government, as well as Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry of OECD. He was awarded Master of Engineering from University of Tokyo, MBA from Cornell University and Ph.D. in business and commerce from Keio

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