J. Davidson Frame

Measuring national technological performance with patent claims data

Abstract Data on US patent claims were gathered for 1970, 1980, and 1990 through a random sampling of the Official Gazette of the US Patent and Trademark Office . The sample contained 7531 patents. Trends in claims awarded to inventors in France, Japan, the UK, the US and West Germany were examined and compared to trends in patenting. The results showed that much of the heavily discussed growth of Japanese inventiveness, as measured by patent counts, is muted when claims are examined in lieu of patents. An analysis of which indicator offers the “best fit” in correlations with other science and technology indicators — claims or patent counts? — suggests that claims consistently outperform patent counts as an indicator of national technological capacity.

International Research Collaboration

lnternational collaborative behaviour among scientists is investigated by examining international co-authorship patterns for a number of scientific fields using the 1973 Science Citation Index. Three major findings emerge: (1) the more basic the field, the greater the proportion of international co-authorships; (2) the larger the national scientific enterprise, the smaller the proportion of international co-authorship; (3) international co-authorships occur along clearly discernible geographic lines, suggesting that extra-scientific factors (for example, geography, politics, language) play a strong role in determining who collaborates with whom in the international scientific community.

The Distribution of World Science

This Note reports some findings resulting from an exploratory analysis of the corporate tapes of the Science Citation Index (SCI), The analysis focuses on the international production of scientific literature, with a view to making a broad survey of national research activities. A narrower survey of international publication and citation activity was reported earlier for a handful of scientifically important countries.1 We have compared the international coverage of the SCI with the coverage of other abstracting and indexing services - such as Physics Abstracts, Chemical Abstracts, and Mathematical Reviews - and found it to be reasonably free from bias. The most serious bias we have found has been underrepresentation of the USSR in mathematics and biomedicine, and some underrepresentation of Japan. The extraction of the international publication data involved extensive computer manipulations of the corporate tapes. A count was made of publications (i.e. articles, notes, and reviews) associated with different national research-producing institutions. For example, if an author gave a his corporate address the University of London, the publication he authored would be assigned to the United Kingdom. When co-authorships indicated international collaboration in research, publications would be fractionally assigned to the respective countries of their authors. The 2,300 journals covered by the SCI in 1973 were further divided into 92 scientific subfields. These subfields are defined by the journals relevant to the subfields. For example, the subfield called microbiology is composed of articles published in 21 journals which are devoted to reporting research findings in microbiology. These subfields are in large measure defined by the citation patterns of publications. Journals with publications which cite each other heavily are generally assigned to the same subfield. Publications in multidisciplinary journals, such as Science, are fractionally assigned to the relevant fields which the journal represents. In order to make the present analysis tractable, the multitude of subfields were aggregated into eight fields: clinical medicine, biomedical research, biology, chemistry, physics, engineering and technology, earth and space

The Growth of Japanese Science and Technology

Several measures are used to delineate the remarkable growth in the Japanese technological position over the last decade. The share of U.S. patents issued to Japanese inventors has been rising at 1 percent per year. These patents are the most frequently cited patents in the U.S. system. By 1984, Japanese inventors obtained more U.S. patents than inventors in the United Kingdom, France, and West Germany combined, and the gap has been widening ever since. As measured by publications, the Japanese scientific position is more modest, with a 0.5 percent rise per year in papers and with barely average citation performance. These indicators characterize Japan as a technological powerhouse, with highly innovative technology, and an expanding but far less powerful scientific position.

National Economic Resources and the Production of Research in Lesser Developed Countries

The relationship between national scientific effort, national economic size, and national affluence is investigated. It is found that the relationship between these variables differs substantially for developed countries (DCs) and underdeveloped countries (LDCs). While affluence and economic size jointly correlate highly with levels of scientific effort m DCs, economic size alone correlates strongly with levels of scientific effort in LDCs. It is concluded that so long as LDCs remain underdeveloped economically, the prospects for their establishing strong scientific capabilities are weak.

The United States, Japan and the changing technological balance

Abstract An examination is made of U.S. and Japanese company patents issued in the United States in two time periods 1976–1980 and 1981–1985. The data show that over the time period being considered, the ratio of U.S. to Japanese company patents fell dramatically: in 1976 there were 5.7 U.S. company patents per Japanese company patent, while in 1985 the ratio fell to 2.5:1.0. When patent trends are examined according to specific technologies, it is clear that Japanese corporate patent performance is strongest in those areas that are most viable commercially. In some of these areas, Japanese companies actually out-patent U.S. companies (e.g. in photography and photocopier technologies). A review of 350 patent classes shows an erosion of the U.S. patent position in most cases. The U.S. position relative to Japanese companies improved in only 17 of the 350 classes. An examination is also made of patent citations made by patent examiners. These data show a strong presence of Japanese company patents in lists of the most highly cited patents. All in all, the study suggests that the Japanese possess a rigorous innovative efffort.

Highly Cited Soviet Papers: An Exploratory Investigation

The bibliometric methodology of citation tabulation is applied to the problem of identifying highly cited Soviet scientific areas. A general lack of highly cited Soviet papers is apparent. A further indication of the isolation of Soviet science is the existence of two discrete sets of highly cited Soviet papers, one set published in Soviet journals and cited by Soviet scientists, and a second set published in international journals and cited by non-Soviet scientists. The lists of highly cited papers were reviewed by experts in the field. The consensus was that these lists were indicative of areas of strong Soviet research and that lists of institutions producing these papers included the important Soviet labs.

The national self-preoccupation of American scientists: An empirical view

Abstract Historical factors, coupled with indigenous talent, made the United States the worlds leading scientific power by the end of World War II. In the post-war years, it appears that American scientists may have been overly self-preoccupied, ignoring the research efforts of their foreign colleagues. Today, at a time when: (1) U.S. scientific strength is decreasing in relation to the scientific capacity of the rest of the world; (2) resource constraints are impinging upon U.S. scientific performance; and (3) a “shrinking” earth is leading to increased global interdependency, the question of American self-preoccupation in science acquires special poignancy. The extent of American scientific self-preoccupation is not known precisely. Bibliometric indicators suggest that American scientists may not be inordinately self-preoccupied. Citation counts indicate that American self-references in the scientific literature are not dramatically excessive in view of the large size of the American research effort, and coauthorship counts show a doubling between 1973 and 1984 of the proportion of U.S. scientific papers that have foreign coauthors.

The growth of chinese scientific research, 1973–84

During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), scientific work came to a halt in China. Universities closed, primary and secondary school education shut down, and intellectuals (including scientists and engineers) were sent to the countryside or to factories to work. The effects of the Cultural Revolution are reflected in Chinas output of scientific literature. In 1973, for example, only one Chinese paper appeared in any of the worlds 2300 most central journals covered by theScience Citation Index. After restrictive policies were loosened, however, scientific papers grew exponentially. By 1982, only six years after the Cultural Revolution ended, Chinese scientists produced 932 papers. This exponential growth of papers leveled off at this point and the number of papers appearing in the core 2300 journal stood at approximately 1000 in 1983 and 1984.

Technology transfer within China

This paper examines technology transfer within China. The Chinese government is currently placing great emphasis on developing indigenous scientific and technological capacity. In order to expedite the strengthening of science and technology capabilities, the government is promoting extraordinary measures designed to enhance the diffusion of technology within China. Special attention is focusing on strengthening the links between the academic, industrial, and defense sectors. In addition, the government is experimenting with policies commonly used in the West that encourage decentralization and the taking of local initiative. Although Chinas concern with technology transfer is very recent, it appears that the new technology transfer policies are having an immediate positive effect.