Patent Data for Monitoring S&T Portfolios

Abstract

This chapter deals with the use of patent data to monitor science and technology (S&T) portfolios. S&T portfolios have become central tools for examining and for monitoring the vitality of institutions, innovative clusters, and regions in the innovation game that underpins their respective economic growth and development. Those portfolios have to be monitored not only at the intra-organisational level, but also at the inter-organizational level, as well as at other appropriate levels of analysis for designated systems of innovation (e.g., specific technology clusters). To this end, the development of appropriate, easy to use and transparent, benchmark indicators to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of S&T portfolios is important. In this chapter the construction of a particular type of benchmark indicator, based on relative specialization indices, is reported and its usefulness is assessed by its application to the European Patent Database.