Measuring national technological performance with patent claims data

Data on US patent claims were gathered for 1970, 1980, and 1990 through a random sampling of the Official Gazette of the US Patent and Trademark Office. The sample contained 7531 patents. Trends in claims awarded to inventors in France, Japan, the UK, the US and West Germany were examined and compared to trends in patenting. The results showed that much of the heavily discussed growth of Japanese inventiveness, as measured by patent counts, is muted when claims are examined in lieu of patents. An analysis of which indicator offers the “best fit” in correlations with other science and technology indicators — claims or patent counts? — suggests that claims consistently outperform patent counts as an indicator of national technological capacity.