Identifying Areas of Leading Edge Japanese Science and Technology: Second Interim Report. Patent Activity and Citation Analysis Using U.S. POC (Patent Office Classification) Classification

摘要

Analysis of Japanese-invented patents appearing in the U.S. patent system over the 10-year period 1975-84, shows that the share of U.S. patents with Japanese inventors increased from 8.8% of all U.S. patents in 1975 to 16.5% in 1984, while the share of patents with U.S. inventors decreased from 64.9% to 57.1%. Japanese inventors obtained 8% more U.S. patents while U.S. inventors obtained 8% fewer, and the rest of the world's inventors remained approximately constant: in the U.S. patent system, the increase in Japanese share was entirely at the expense of the United States. The Japanese patents are shown to be quite concentrated in relatively high-technology classes related, especially, to those areas of consumer products where there is a major Japanese presence, including electronics, photography, and automotive technology. There is also a growing Japanese presence in the pharmaceutical area. When looked at from the point-of-view of citation analysis--that is, considering highly cited patents to be patents of particular technical impact and quality--the Japanese performance is just as impressive. Among the most highly cited few percent of U.S. patents, the Japanese have 30 to 50% more patents than expected, and the Japanese inventors are patenting in the most highly cited 1% of patents--the areas in which the Japanese have substantial numbers of these very highly cited patents are automotive technology, semiconductor electronics, photocopying and photography, and pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical chemistry. The implication of all of the above is that the Japanese position in patented technology is strong, growing and based on high quality, high impact technology which has been invented by Japanese inventors.