The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge financial support from the project on ‘Dynamic capabilities, growth and long-term competitiveness of European firms (Dynacom)’, funded under the EC’s Targeted Socio-Economic Research programme (contract number SOE1-CT97-1078).
Abstract:
Based on the theory of Product Cycle and empirical data at an aggregate level
it has been argued that the propensity to internationalise corporate technological
activity is higher among low research-intensive industries. However, more disaggregated
evidence on the patenting of the world’s largest firms suggests a more complex
picture.
First, on a disaggregated level there is great diversity among countries with each industry in the degree of internationalisation of technological activity that is not recorded in global average position. The share of foreign-located activity (through outward investment) depends upon the technological strength of each national group of firms in an industry, while the share of foreign-owned activity (through inward investment in a host country) depends upon the technological competitiveness of indigenous firms.
Second, the largest firms increasingly use international research networks as a means of corporate technological diversification. This way, firms in some low research-intensive industries locate abroad the development of some more research-intensive technologies (hence obtaining a high foreign research share); while firms in some science-based industries specialise abroad in the development of engineering-based technologies while focusing upon their core research-intensive lines at home (hence lowering their foreign research share).
1. Introduction
Innovation has been increasingly internationalised in recent decades and the evolution of this process is characterised in part by the geographical dispersion of the research activities of the largest firms. The largest US and especially European companies have made a major contribution to this process. While internationalisation is not a new phenomenon, the number of the large firms involved, and the importance of the technological activity that is carried out abroad has greatly increased (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1989; Cantwell, 1995; Dunning, 1993).
Until the 1970s technological activity was often assumed, based on the US evidence, to take place close to the parent firm’s headquarters. Large firms were considered to comprise of the parent company and a system of largely independent affiliates. The geographical dispersion of R&D facilities was facilitated by centrifugal and restricted centripetal forces that determined international expansion (Pearce, 1989; Pearce and Singh, 1992).
Since then the role of internationally dispersed technological activities in extending the creation and diffusion of innovation by tapping into local resources has become more apparent and has led to a structural transformation of firms, regions and nations (Dunning, 2000). The international dispersion of technologies has both augmented indigenous firm assets and more effectively deployed existing firm capabilities (Kuemmerle, 1998; 1999).
In some recent studies two reasons for the emergence and growth of international networks for innovation in multinational companies have been emphasised. First, technological activity in any industry is locationally differentiated, as part of different National and Regional Systems of Innovation (Lundvall, 1988; Freeman, 1995; Patel and Pavitt, 1991). Recent evidence suggests that there are significant economies of agglomeration or local clustering in the geographical location of innovation (Dosi, 1988; Cantwell, 1991; Baptista and Swann, 1995). The diffusion of technology, then, is argued not to be easy or automatic. What makes each system unique is the particular sectoral pattern of tacit capabilities that have been developed within individual firms in each location over time (Nelson, 1993; Patel and Pavitt, 1994). Knowledge diffusion is geographically bounded and involves characteristics of innovation in each country that provide firms with a differentiated but complementary stream of new knowledge. Second, the geographical dispersion of research enables firms to gain access to new lines of innovation and hence has become positively associated with corporate technological diversification (Cantwell and Piscitello, 1999a, 1999b; Breschi, S., Lissoni, F., and Malerba, F., 1998). Moreover, "…companies with wider-ranging R&D expertise, are more likely to recognise the significance and the potential of both incremental and radical technological developments. Broad R&D competencies and skills are a method of dealing with discontinuities and turbulence; a way of technology-watching and keeping options open" (Dodgson, 1989).
The second section describes the data and the methodology. The third section discusses the empirical findings presented in Tables 1 to 4. Here a distinction is drawn between the national patterns of technological development abroad of multinational companies and the composition of technological activities of foreign-owned firms located in selected host countries. Finally, the fourth section summarises the main points and draws conclusions.
2. Data and methodology
Already in the 1960s work conducted by Schmookler (Schmookler, 1966) and Scherer (Scherer, 1980) related firm size, and the volume of investment to the determinants of the rate and direction of inventive activity. Growing recognition since then of the importance of technology and technological change for the competitiveness and growth of both firms and countries led to a continuous effort in the exploration of the causal relationships between patenting activity and measured economic variables. There is almost unanimous agreement about the importance of patent statistics, although there is considerable debate among scientists about the essence of what exactly is being measured. A brief examination follows, of the nature of information that patents provide us with.
Patents are an indirect measure of advances in knowledge. They provide a good proxy measure of technological activity (Cantwell, 1993). Historical evidence supports the assumption (Cantwell and Andersen, 1996) that the rate of patenting growth relates to the increase of technological opportunities in the field of reference. The database used for the study consists of patents granted in the US to the largest world firms. The data presented here are patents granted to 792 of the world’s largest industrial firms, derived from the listings of Fortune 500 (Dunning and Pearce, 1985). Of these 792 companies 730 had an active patenting presence during the period 1969-1995. Moreover, 54 companies were added to these. They include (mainly for recent years, but occasionally historically) enterprises that occupied a prominent position in the US patent records, some of which are firms that were omitted from Fortune’s listing for classification reasons (e.g. RCA and ATT were classified in the service sector).
Patents granted in the US are a rich, historically consistent and often unique source of information. The patent record includes the name/-s of inventors, details about the time of application and granting of the patent, and the name and location of the parent firm as well as the location of the research facilities that have led to the invention. Moreover, it provides a historically consistent classification of the type of technology associated with each invention that can be used in conjunction with the detailed citation data, that are also included, to provide sets of patents and some indication of the relationship between sets. Inventions have to satisfy three criteria in order to be entitled to a patent: novelty, non-obviousness and usefulness. The US system is referred to as the first-to-invent system, in contrast to the EC and the Japanese, which are first-to-file systems.
The year 1984 is used as the base year in the consolidation process. In other words firms were consolidated in their 1984 form with respect to patents granted between 1969 and 1984, but post-1984 acquisitions have been taken into account. To identify the corporate groups, companies have been grouped according to their country of origin (home country of the parent company) and allocated to the industry of their primary output, according to the product distribution of their sales. As stated already, each patent granted to the world’s largest firms has been classified into a type of technological activity. This employs a system of patent classes used by the US Patent Office. Usually patents are assigned to several technological fields, but here the primary classification is used in all cases. For the purposes of our study patents have been aggregated into six periods (dividing 1969-1995 into six). An extensive literature discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the use of patent data as a comparable indicator of technological activity (Griliches, 1990; Archibugi, 1992; Pavitt, 1988). These comprehensive accounts aim to raise caution as to the potential problems of interpretation of these data and state the limitations of the method rather than undermining its significance.
Although a detailed analysis is beyond the scope and scale of this work some points that are significant to what follows are highlighted here. There is a great variation of the propensity to patent across countries and across industries. The differences are mostly among developing and developed countries, but also among the developed for institutional reasons. However, we only deal with the largest and most technologically advanced firms whose propensity to patent is high. Moreover, the RTA index (which is explained further below) is used in order to normalise for these differences. This study focuses on patenting activity by firms owned or located in European countries and measures patents granted in a third country, the US. This helps to minimise the bias that could otherwise result from the comparisons among different countries and industrial groups.
The Revealed Technological Advantage (RTA) index is a proxy measure of technological specialisation across different fields of technological activity. In this paper the profile of technological specialisation across fields of innovative activity of a national group of firms in a specific industry (such as Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals), is measured by the RTA index. RTA is defined as the share of US patents granted to the group in question in some given technological field, relative to the group’s share of US patents in all technological fields granted to firms in the industry.
RTAij =(Pij/S j Pij )( S iP ij /S iS j P ij),
where: P is the number of US patents
i is the national group of firms
j is the technological sector
The index gives values around unity. The greater the value, the more a group of firms has a comparative technological advantage in the field of activity in question. The index controls for inter-sectoral and inter-country variations in the propensity to patent (Cantwell, 1993).
3. The internationalisation of corporate technologies varies across industries with the strengths of indigenous firms
Table 1 provides a static view of inter-industry and cross-national group comparisons. From the World Total column it is obvious that not all industries are internationalised to the same extent. Among the most internationalised are the food (22.24%), pharmaceuticals (16.16%), petrochemicals (15.08%), and chemicals (14.21%). Moreover, there is not an even distribution of international R&D across national groups and industries. The contribution of some national groups to foreign innovative activity is far more important than that of others. In food, for instance, France (61.79%), UK (66.42%), and Switzerland (69.12%) are the national groups responsible for the high foreign share in the World Total (22.24%), but not the US (6.53%). In chemicals (world total 14.21%), it is entirely due to the high internationalisation of the German companies, the world leaders in this industry (20.76%). In pharmaceuticals (world total 16.16%) it is firms of the US (10.99%), Switzerland (59.36%), and to a lesser degree Germany (17.98%), and in petrochemical products the high overall foreign share is only due to the largest British firms (83.90%). At the other end of the spectrum, instruments is one of the least internationalised industries (a mere 3.37% in world total), but not for Swedish firms (32.13%).
Firms in general sustain a wider research in a variety of technological fields to support a narrower range of products. In the chemical and pharmaceutical industry for example, mechanical engineering innovations are of great importance for production processes (Pavitt et al., 1989). Partly as a result of this spread of the development of many technologies across industries, the dispersion of internationalisation of technological sectors in Table 2 is narrower than for the world total of industries in Table 1. Hence, the larger number of sectors is around average. Notably above average is pharmaceutical technological activity (18.79%); while, below are the fields of aircraft and aerospace (2.58%) and motor vehicles (5.57%).
Most of the international innovation in Table 2, as in Table 1, is done by only a handful of national groups. Food, for example, is a technological sector that German firms abroad place the greatest emphasis upon (26.97%), while US companies abroad have very low activity (at 4.91%). In pharmaceuticals the foreign share is again highest by the relevant national standards for Germany (26.96%), the US (11.32%) and to a lesser degree Switzerland (54.25%), while it is very low for the French (13.01%), and the British companies. The international activity of UK firms in pharmaceuticals (30.65%) is much below the national average, owing to the fact that the UK is a major centre for development in the pharmaceutical industry, and so UK-owned firms conduct much of their research at home.(1).
The focal point in Tables 3 and 4, is the degree of foreign penetration in each of our selection of host countries. In Table 3 the foreign shares of local activity are classified by industry and in Table 4 by the field of technological activity as derived from the US patent class system.
Considering the world as a whole in Table 3, foreign penetration is highest in the industrial sectors of food (22.24%), pharmaceuticals (16.16%), petrochemicals (15.08%), chemicals (14.21%), and machinery (12.47%). Looking more closely, however, country variations suggest a more complex picture, the food industry is much below average for the UK (15.45% as against to the country’s total average of 33.73%). In pharmaceuticals Switzerland, Sweden, France and Germany have low levels of foreign research penetration, while the UK, although (indeed because it is) a leader in this industry has attracted considerable foreign attention. In chemicals Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands have witnessed minimal penetration in comparison with the tendencies in the world as a whole. Moreover, the two countries of major comparative strength in coal and petroleum the UK and the Netherlands have both developed strong research bases in petrochemicals at home that allowed little foreign penetration. The UK has a clear technological advantage in the pharmaceutical sector enhanced by the virtuous cycles of interaction between indigenous firms and inward investment from the US (Cantwell, 1987,1989). Instruments, an industry largely unfavourable for internationalisation (the world total is 3.37%), gains substantial appeal in the case of the larger European countries (France, UK and Germany), but not so in the US.
The world total in Table 4 reveals a quite different view of international activity when considering the type of technological activity (as opposed to the industry) that is sited abroad. Differences are apparent in Petrochemicals and in Chemicals that now feature below average, while Mechanical Engineering is now above average. This suggests that oil companies use their foreign-located development more for mining and the mechanical technologies involved in the extraction of crude oil, rather than to innovate in petrochemicals themselves. A similar pattern, even if to a lesser extent, may apply in other industries. The level of international activity in Food is also considerably less as a technological field as opposed to an industry (Cantwell and Santangelo, 1998, 2000). Another point to be made is the relative increase in the activity of both instrument and pharmaceutical technological sectors in contrast with the equivalent industries.
In a comparative analysis of Tables 1-4 across industries or fields of technological activity, the highest foreign share for US firms is computing (see Table 1), but the propensity of US companies to develop computing technologies abroad is only around average (7.21%, Table 2). At the other extreme, Table 3 shows evidence of entry deterrence in this industry in the US, especially when it is combined with Table 4. Table 4 shows that foreign ownership in US located research in office equipment (1.41% in Table 3 as opposed to 5.32% in Table 4) compared to the national average (7.11%) confirms the interest of foreign investors in acquiring US technology in this sector, although indirectly as a complementary technology in other industries (given the weak penetration in the computer industry itself, revealed in Table 3). However, the US is very open and competitive in chemicals, pharmaceuticals and food-related industries.
In Europe, petrochemical technologies are less developed by German-owned firms abroad (Table 1), but the coal and petroleum product industry within Germany shows a high foreign penetration (80.47% in Table 3), which is probably the result of the absence of any major indigenous oil industry in Germany. Metals and machinery technologies both reveal a high penetration from foreign-owned firms in Germany. Metals in particular attract a lot of research from firms in industries related but not directly connected (9.87% in Table 3 and 28.78% in Table 4). Electrical equipment is, with some weak resistance, led by the efforts of foreign-owned firms in Germany (30.01% in Table 3). In chemicals and pharmaceuticals indigenous German strength has meant a different picture. Chemicals have a low foreign penetration as both Tables 3 and 4 show (6.49% and 8.09% respectively). In the pharmaceuticals industry foreign penetration is a little below average (13.91% in Table 3). The strong development of pharmaceutical technologies by German firms abroad (26.96% in Table 2), has not been matched by foreign-owned firms in Germany (8.05% in Table 4). In the UK, the Coal and Petroleum industry has long been highly internationalised (83.90% in Table 1 and 68.74% in Table 2). The pharmaceutical industry is also very open to foreign-owned firms that are responsible for more than half of the patents from local research (50.34% in Table 3). However, in food foreign-owned firms are rather overwhelmed by the indigenous UK competitive presence and very few attempt entry. France, aside from the Netherlands, is the only European country with a strong Computing sector that has an exceptionally high degree of internationalisation (31.97% in Table 1) and is at the same time open to foreign-owned firms (56.57% in Table 3). The French chemical and pharmaceutical industries are quite inward looking, and foreign penetration is relatively high for the chemical industry (33.31% in Table 3) while for pharmaceuticals it is high for the technological sector (37.61% in Table 4). This suggests that some pharmaceutical products may be developed locally by foreign-owned chemical firms in France. In the mechanical engineering industry, foreign-owned firms are highly active in France, but more in the development of related non-mechanical technologies (52.00% in Table 3 and 26.53% in Table 4). French machinery firms are very little internationalised (1.03% in Table 1), and other French firms develop mechanical technologies abroad only to a slightly greater extent (11.51% in Table 2).
5. Summary and conclusions
Our results support the conclusion that first, there is no single, uniform pattern of internationalisation of the corporate research and development in an industry which holds across different national groups of firms with different degrees of technological strength in the industry in question; and second, penetration in locations of domestic technological excellence tends to be low in most host countries. Hence, while Patel and Pavitt (1988) have emphasised that the internationalisation of corporate technological activity is on average greatest in low research-intensive industries such as food products (to adapt to local consumer needs and demand-side conditions) or resource-based industries such as oil (to facilitate extraction processes), this appears to be only a rather partial story, and a potentially misleading one. From positions of technological strength, firms in science-based industries such as chemicals, pharmaceuticals or computing can often become highly internationalised and develop cross-border networks of diversified and locationally specialised innovation; while if technologically weak, firms in industries such as oil and food tend to have little research abroad. What is more, technologically leading firms in low research-intensive industries such as food may utilise their international networks to tap into complementary science-based excellence abroad in fields such as biotechnology (rather than simply to adapt their products to the needs of local markets). Conversely, science-based companies may access mainly engineering skills in foreign locations, and develop machinery and instruments outside their home base.
Tables 1 and 2 show how individual national groups expand their research activities in a varied manner that has little to do with the industry’s and technology’s average position. First, for the foreign-located research activity of the most internationalised industries only a few national groups are responsible. Among the most internationalised industries, food is internationalised mostly due to French and Swiss firms, pharmaceuticals due to US, Swiss, and German firms, chemicals due to German companies that contribute the most, and petrochemicals almost exclusively due to British firms abroad. On the other side, in instruments which is one of the least internationalised industries (in the global average position), internationalisation is due to Swedish firms. In each case these are national groups that are technological leaders in the relevant industries. Second, the greatest internationalisation occurs in technological areas that do not coincide with the core fields of the most internationalised industries, especially when individual national groups are considered separately. Significantly above average in their degree of internationalisation are pharmaceutical technologies which is due to German and US firms, and to a lesser extent due to Swiss companies, and food technologies mainly due to German firms. Further, unlike the high internationalisation of research in the coal and petroleum product industry, petrochemical technologies are below average in their degree of internationalisation. . Moreover, foreign-located activity is lowest not only in aircraft but also in the motor vehicles industry and technological area (see totals in Table 1 and 2) in contrast to what might be expected if research were simply to facilitate adaptation to foreign markets. Third, unlike the indigenous companies of the comparatively weak computing industry in Germany, German firms show great interest in developing computing technologies abroad
Tables 3 and 4 show, from the host country’s perspective, in what industries and technologies the world’s largest firms tap into local research expertise, and the degree of accessibility they enjoy. Countries such as the US, the UK and Germany while hosting local technological development in a great number of industries and technologies do not tend to experience penetration in their domestic research to an equal extent in their strongest core activities. The US, for instance, in computing, the UK in food (in both the relevant industry and technological field), both countries in petrochemicals (at least in the technological field), and Germany in chemicals and pharmaceuticals (in both the industry and technological area). However, France is to the almost the same extent open to foreign-owned research as its indigenous firms are themselves internationalised in food and computing, but to a much lesser degree in mechanical engineering technologies (in comparison with the machinery industry). Lastly, although the Swedish instrument industry is open to foreign-owned firms, penetration in instrument technologies is minimal.
To conclude, we must be careful that in looking at the tree we do not lose sight of the forest, but likewise a panoramic view may be misleading if it skates over the complexity that is associated with substantial variations in the quality and type of the timber. Our picture is different when we compare the experiences of different national groups with varying strengths in the degree of their internationalisation of corporate technology at an industry level and at the level of technological fields instead of just examining the totals that represent global average values.
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(1). An indication of countries' competitiveness is given by the number of start-ups in the dynamic sector of biotechnology: "According to a report by Ernst & Young released today […] Germany has 225 biotech companies, against 270 in the UK. Five years ago, Germany had almost no life science start-ups at all. France, traditionally Europe's second centre for biotechnology, is a distant third with 150 companies. Behind it comes Israel, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands." (Financial Times 1999).
Table 1
The percentage of US patents of the world’s largest firms attributable to research in foreign locations, organised by nationality and industrial group of the parent firms, during the period 1969 – 1995
|
United |
|
United |
|
Nether- |
Switzer- |
|
|
|
Food, Drink and Tobacco |
6.53 | 0.00* | 66.42 | 61.79 | 0.00* | 69.12 | 0.00* | 9.44 | 22.24 |
Chemicals | 6.36 | 20.67 | 33.13 | 11.81 | 49.89 | 41.55 | 16.52 | 4.57 | 14.21 |
Pharma- ceuticals |
10.99 | 17.98 | 19.25 | 4.84 | N.A | 59.36 | 15.33 | 0.83 | 16.16 |
Metals | 6.16 | 7.79 | 46.03 | 8.83 | 63.44 | 41.33 | 18.89 | 6.90 | 10.32 |
Mechanical Engineering |
7.08 | 7.04 | 56.47 | 1.27 | N.A. | 29.48 | 32.25 | 10.17 | 12.47 |
Electrical Equipment |
6.57 | 14.09 | 30.03 | 24.31 | 51.93 | 34.19 | 36.16 | 1.27 | 9.74 |
Office Equipment |
11.41 | 3.62 | 11.73 | 31.97 | N.A. | N.A. | N.A. | 3.99 | 10.34 |
Motor Vehicles |
5.60 | 8.32 | 24.39 | 6.28 | N.A. | N.A. | 11.35 | 1.95 | 5.68 |
Aircraft and Aerospace |
2.34 | 0.82 | 3.06 | 3.83 | N.A. | N.A. | N.A. | N.A. | 2.39 |
Coal and Petroleum |
4.25 | 0.63 | 83.90 | 12.25 | N.A. | N.A. | N.A. | 12.75 | 15.08 |
Professional and Scientific Instruments |
5.80 | 3.51 | 74.29* | N.A. | N.A. | N.A. | 32.13 | 0.77 | 3.37 |
Other | 7.92 | 11.44 | 28.22 | 26.67 | N.A. | 29.03 | 26.41 | 9.16 | 10.39 |
Total |
6.80 |
14.98 |
45.76 |
15.92 |
51.72 |
44.66 |
27.61 |
3.20 |
10.81 |
Source: US patent database
compiled by John Cantwell of the University of Reading, with the assistance
of the US Patent Trademark Office
Notes: *Less than 100 patents in the home country of the firm
N.A. Not available
Table 2
The percentage of US patents of the world’s largest firms attributable to research in foreign locations, classified by the type of technological activity and nationality of the parent firms, during the period 1969 - 1995
Technological |
United |
|
United |
|
Nether- |
Switzer- |
|
|
|
Food, Drink and Tobacco |
4.91 | 26.97 | 61.72 | 30.91* | 20.59* | 47.62 | 23.94* | 6.25 | 13.62 |
Chemicals | 6.16 | 16.24 | 54.15 | 11.46 | 40.94 | 43.41 | 23.70 | 3.77 | 12.49 |
Pharma- ceuticals |
11.32 | 26.96 | 30.65 | 13.01 | 39.87 | 54.25 | 20.29 | 4.67 | 18.79 |
Metals | 6.34 | 12.73 | 50.68 | 10.29 | 45.87 | 42.13 | 25.83 | 5.43 | 10.41 |
Mechanical Engineering |
7.33 | 10.88 | 51.41 | 11.51 | 58.35 | 40.30 | 34.03 | 6.54 | 12.14 |
Electrical Equipment |
6.80 | 13.63 | 32.55 | 23.74 | 52.96 | 36.61 | 25.91 | 1.81 | 9.36 |
Office Equipment |
7.21 | 25.53 | 27.57 | 37.86 | 45.17 | 33.00 | 18.18 | 2.11 | 7.84 |
Motor Vehicles |
7.00 | 9.24 | 19.20 | 9.16 | 76.60* | 16.67* | 16.58 | 1.96 | 5.57 |
Aircraft and Aerospace |
1.21* | 3.06 | 9.84 | 0.90 | 64.29* | 25.00* | 6.25* | 2.70* | 2.58 |
Coal and Petroleum |
3.43 | 5.63 | 68.74 | 2.44 | 40.74* | 62.96* | 20.00* | 8.74 | 8.62 |
Professional and Scientific Instruments |
7.32 | 12.65 | 36.54 | 11.70 | 60.79 | 52.25 | 27.26 | 1.76 | 8.77 |
Other | 6.05 | 10.64 | 38.75 | 16.44 | 52.58 | 42.38 | 19.19 | 4.05 | 9.33 |
Total |
6.80 |
14.98 |
45.76 |
15.92 |
51.72 |
44.66 |
27.61 |
3.20 |
10.81 |
Source: As for Table 1
Notes: *Less than 100 patents in the home country of the firm
Table 3
The percentage of US corporate patents of the world's largest firms attributable to research in host countries due to foreign-owned firms, organised by the industrial group of the parent company, during the period 1969 - 1995
|
United |
|
United |
|
Nether- |
Switzer- |
|
|
Food, Drink and Tobacco |
17.50 | 99.64 | 15.45 | 55.25 | 82.16 | 29.77 | 83.33* | 22.24 |
Chemicals | 14.61 | 6.49 | 29.55 | 33.31 | 11.60 | 3.78 | 13.32 | 14.21 |
Pharma- ceuticals |
9.91 | 13.91 | 50.34 | 19.34 | 100.00* | 4.13 | 2.87 | 16.16 |
Metals | 10.92 | 9.87 | 29.62 | 11.20 | 48.68 | 15.00 | 1.81 | 10.32 |
Mechanical Engineering |
5.05 | 25.84 | 47.16 | 52.00 | 100.00 | 14.81 | 1.48 | 12.47 |
Electrical Equipment |
6.01 | 30.01 | 43.48 | 27.85 | 4.11 | 40.62 | 22.91 | 9.74 |
Office Equipment |
1.41 | 86.34 | 76.71 | 56.76 | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00* | 10.34 |
Motor Vehicles |
3.50 | 8.35 | 13.18 | 21.83 | 100.00 | 100.00* | 3.27 | 5.68 |
Aircraft and Aerospace |
0.14* | 15.18 | 10.54 | 2.85 | 100.00* | 100.00* | 100.00* | 2.39 |
Coal and Petroleum |
10.22 | 80.47 | 19.43 | 10.31 | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00* | 15.08 |
Professional and Scientific Instruments |
0.87 | 29.90 | 97.79 | 100.00 | 100.00* | 100.00* | 2.16 | 3.37 |
Other Manufacturing |
4.57 | 56.64 | 26.71 | 30.66 | 100.00* | 14.49 | 13.21 | 10.39 |
Total |
7.11 |
16.87 |
33.73 |
25.86 |
26.50 |
15.25 |
9.93 |
10.81 |
Source: As for Table 1
Notes: *Less than 100 patents in the host country
Table 4
The percentage of US corporate patents attributable to research in host countries due to foreign-owned firms, classified by the type of technological activity, during the period 1969 - 1995
Technological |
United |
|
United |
|
Nether- |
Switzer- |
|
|
Food, Drink and Tobacco |
8.28 | 30.85 | 20.73 | 45.71* | 80.43 | 24.66 | 16.92* | 13.62 |
Chemicals | 9.81 | 8.09 | 35.54 | 21.19 | 46.45 | 4.92 | 10.20 | 12.49 |
Pharma- ceuticals |
15.78 | 8.05 | 41.55 | 37.61 | 13.24 | 2.54 | 5.23 | 18.79 |
Metals | 5.68 | 28.78 | 34.86 | 20.37 | 30.56 | 17.47 | 7.89 | 10.41 |
Mechanical Engineering |
6.76 | 25.73 | 28.35 | 26.58 | 52.32 | 23.58 | 7.22 | 12.14 |
Electrical Equipment |
5.09 | 25.13 | 39.45 | 28.66 | 6.76 | 47.79 | 7.72 | 9.36 |
Office Equipment |
5.32 | 29.37 | 50.53 | 40.46 | 3.80 | 63.59 | 22.34 | 7.84 |
Motor Vehicles |
5.38 | 7.01 | 20.79 | 21.62 | 66.67* | 10.00* | 1.23 | 5.68 |
Aircraft and Aerospace |
0.86 | 9.09 | 0.87 | 4.76 | 0.00* | 14.29* | 14.29* | 2.58 |
Coal and Petroleum |
4.61 | 14.14 | 18.32 | 9.09 | 92.83 | 23.08* | 0.00* | 8.62 |
Professional and Scientific Instruments |
5.13 | 20.63 | 37.05 | 30.58 | 13.23 | 36.87 | 27.19 | 8.77 |
Other Manufacturing |
5.49 | 16.33 | 19.75 | 16.06 | 33.17 | 19.17 | 5.58 | 9.33 |
Total |
7.11 |
16.87 |
33.73 |
25.86 |
26.50 |
15.25 |
9.93 |
10.81 |
Source: As for Table 1
Notes: *Less than 100 patents in the host country