Measuring China's International Technology Catchup

This article compares China's science and technology advance with the US, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. Using World Intellectual Property Organization and United States Patent and Trademark Office data for the number and quality of patent grants issued by foreign patent offices, several results stand out. First, within a short period, 2010-2017, China has registered a dramatic surge in granted patents, narrowing the foreign patent count gap with a number of largeOECD economies. However, quality adjustments show less impressive gains for Chinese patenting, particularly concerning semiconductors, where a large decline in quality accompanied thesurge in patenting. The article places China's patent performance in a broader context, taking into account, the dimensions of population, geography, and time.