Abstract
The counting of patents and citations is commonly used to evaluate technological innovation and its impact. However, in an age of increasing international collaboration, the counting of international collaboration patents has become a methodological issue. This study compared country rankings using four different counting methods (i.e. whole counting, straight counting, whole-normalized counting, complete-normalized counting) in patent, citation and citation-patent ratio (CP ratio) counts. It also observed inflation depending on the method used. The counting was based on the complete 1992–2011 patent and citation data issued by United States Patent and Trademark Office. The results show that counting methods have only minor effects on country rankings in patent count, citation count and CP ratio count. All four counting methods yield reliable country ranks in technology innovation capability and impact. While the influences of counting methods vary between patent count, citation count and CP ratio count, counting methods may exert slightly greater effects on CP ratio counts than on patent and citation counts. As for the inflation, the distributions of higher and lower inflation by the four counting methods are different in patent, citation and CP ratio counts.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Academic Ranking of World Universities. (2010). Ranking methodology. Retrieved from http://www.arwu.org/ARWUSubjectMethodology 2010.jsp.
Bhattacharya, S. (2004). Mapping inventive activity and technological change through patent analysis: A case study of India and China. Scientometrics, 61, 361–381.
Egghe, L., Rousseau, R., & van Hooydonk, G. (2000). Methods for accrediting publications to authors or countries: Consequences for evaluation studies. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 51(2), 145–157.
Gauffriau, M., & Larsen, P. O. (2005). Counting methods are decisive for rankings based on publications and citation studies. Scientometrics, 64(1), 85–93.
Gauffriau, M., Larsen, P. O., Maye, I., Roulin-Perriard, A., & von Ins, M. (2007). Publications, cooperation and productivity measures in scientific research. Scientometrics, 73(2), 175–214.
Gauffriau, M., Larsen, P. O., Maye, I., Roulin-Perriard, A., & von Ins, M. (2008). Comparisons of results of publication counting using different methods. Scientometrics, 77(1), 147–176.
Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan. (2012). Indicators. Retrieved from http://ranking.heeact.edu.tw/enus/2010/Page/Indicators.
Hinze, S., Schmoch, U., et al. (2004). Opening the black box. In H. F. Moed (Ed.), Handbook of quantitative science and technology research. New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Huang, M. H. (2011). A comparison of three major academic rankings for world universities: from a research evaluation perspective. Journal of Library and Information Studies, 9(1), 1–25.
Huang, M.-H., Lin, C.-S., & Chen, D.-Z. (2011). Counting methods, country rank changes, and counting inflation in the assessment of national research productivity and impact. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 62(12), 2427–2436.
Liu, X. Z., & Fang, H. (2012). Fairly sharing the credit of multi-authored papers and its application in the modification of h-index and g-index. Scientometrics, 91(1), 37–49.
Narin F. (1991). Globalization of research, scholarly information and patents—ten years trend. In Proceedings of the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) 6th annual conference, The Serials Librarian 21, (pp 2–3).
Nudelman, A. E., & Landers, C. E. (1972). The failure of 100 divided by 3 to equal 33 1/3. The American Sociologist, 7(9), 9.
Persson, O. (2001). All author citations versus first author citations. Scientometrics, 50(2), 339–344.
Pravdi′c, N., & Olui′c-Vukovic, V. (1986). Dual approach to multiple authorship in the study of collaboration/scientific output relationship. Scientometrics, 10(5), 259–280.
Pravdić, N., & Oluić -Vukovic, V. (1991). Distribution of scientific productivity: Ambiguities in the assignment of author rank. Scientometrics, 20(1), 131–144.
Quacquarelli Symonds. (2011). Data indicator. Retrieved from http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/methodology/data-indicators.
Soete, L. G., & Wyatt, S. M. E. (1983). The use of foreign patenting as an international comparable science and technology output indicator. Scientometrics, 5, 31–54.
Thompson, P., & Fox-Kean, M. (2005). Patent citations and the geography of knowledge spillovers: A reassessment. American Economic Review, 95(1), 450–460.
Tol, R. S. J. (2011). Credit where credit’s due: accounting for co-authorship in citation counts. Scientometrics, 89(1), 291–299.
Trajtenberg, M. (2001). Innovations in Israel 1968–1997: A comparative analysis using patent data. Research Policy, 30, 363–389.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zheng, J., Zhao, Z., Zhang, X. et al. Influences of counting methods on country rankings: a perspective from patent analysis. Scientometrics 98, 2087–2102 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-013-1139-9
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-013-1139-9