Global Leadership in Production of Patents

Rolando Pena-Sanchez
(Texas A&M International University, USA)

Abstract: Among all countries, USA, China and Japan appear with the largest level in the production of patents; the generation of patents reflects a significant part of the economical development of a country, and also this activity is intrinsically related to the intellectual capital of an organization. This study focuses on the statistical comparison of this activity for the cluster of countries with the highest production of patents (based on annual data) for the period 2005-2010; a nonparametric statistical method was selected (whose justification is explained) to perform the comparisons, and a diagram of parameters is shown to facilitate the comprehension of the factors involved in this process.

Key words: production of patents; annual growth rate of patents; box-plot; Friedman test

JEL code: O30