On the Origins of the Worldwide Surge in Patenting: An Industry Perspective on the R&D-patent Relationship

This paper decomposes the R&D-patent relationship at the industry level to shed light on thesources of the worldwide surge in patent applications. The empirical analysis is based on aunique dataset that includes 5 patent indicators computed for 18 industries in 19 countriescovering the period from 1987 to 2005. The analysis shows that variations in patentapplications reflect not only variations in research productivity but also variations in theappropriability and filing strategies adopted by firms. The results also suggest that the patentexplosion observed in several patent offices can be attributed to the greater globalization ofintellectual property rights rather than to a surge in research productivity.