Patent bibliometrics

Abstract

In our 1975 monograph "Evaluative Bibliometrics" we discussed the many uses of publication and citation analysis in the evaluation of scientific activities, and some of the basic statistical properties of the scientific literature, particularly the skewness of the distributions of publications and citations, reference time distributions, and various anomalies in the citation patterns from one country to another. Over the last ten years we have devoted much of our energy to the development of an analogous research base and infrastructure for patent bibliometrics, that is for the use of patents, and patent citations in the evaluation of technological activities. There are remarkable similarities between literature bibliometrics and patent bibliometrics, and they are both applicable to the same wide ranges of problems. This paper will show that there are striking similarities between literature and patent distributions of national productivity, inventor productivity, referencing cycles, citation impact and within country citation preferences. © 1994 Akadémiai Kiadó.