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How do the BRIC countries play their roles in the global innovation arena? A study based on USPTO patents during 1990–2009

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Abstract

This paper proposes a new taxonomy for the internationalization patterns of innovation of the BRIC countries within the global innovation landscape during the period 1990–2009. Based on the BRICs’ patents granted by the USPTO, we find (1) the BRICs gradually increased their roles in the global innovation arena with various degrees of internationalization; (2) the domestic-dominant pattern has widely countered the foreign dominance of innovation, while the collaborative multi-dominant pattern has increased; (3) a divergence of the BRICs’ global innovation output growth emerged, while their internationalization pattern portfolios evolved towards greater similarity; and (4) China has differentiated itself by increasing its global innovation influence.

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Notes

  1. Due to the fact that South Africa joined BRIC only in 2011 but our study period was until 2009, we thus did not include South Africa into our analysis.

  2. To be consistent throughout this study, when counting measures a weight of 0.5 is always used in these situations.

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Acknowledgments

This research is supported by the National Science Foundation of China (grant no. 71302133), the Youth Project of Ministry of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences Planning Funding (grant no. 13YJC790154), and the funding of Sichuan University (grant no. skyb201302).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

    Jason Li-Ying

  2. Business School of Sichuan University, Sichuan University, Sichuan, China

    Yuandi Wang

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  1. Yuandi Wang
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  2. Jason Li-Ying
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Correspondence to Jason Li-Ying.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 6.

Table 6 Checking for inconsistent patenting activities violating the headquarter rule in a sample firms of international and Chinese domestic multinationals
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Wang, Y., Li-Ying, J. How do the BRIC countries play their roles in the global innovation arena? A study based on USPTO patents during 1990–2009. Scientometrics 98, 1065–1083 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-013-1141-2

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