Collaborative and Legal Dynamics of International R&D- Evolving Patterns in East Asia

- this study analyzes all USPTO patent with multiple assignee countries.
- this study defines collaborative influence and legal value.
- collaborative influences of East Asian countries are increasing.
- the legal value is used to evaluate patent value.
- the legal value is used to identify best partner country.

International R&D collaboration is perceived as important R&D strategy to obtain complementary resources, to learn from the partner as well as to share risks and costs. Previous studies suggested that international R&D collaboration has positive impacts but the impacts investigated in literature are either not clearly defined or largely focused on business or technology. This study attempts to investigate collaborative influence and legal value of international R&D by analyzing East Asian collaborative patents with multiple assignee countries from the perspectives of social network theory and cross-country patent infringement probability. It is found that international R&D is positively related to both collaborative influence and legal value. The evolving pattern shows that China and Taiwan are the most prolific and fastest-growing patenting countries. Also, Taiwan is the most important partner country in East Asia's internationalization of R&D. Two important contributions of this study can be summarized as follows: 1) this study defines collaborative influence and legal value based on which the dynamics of East Asia's international R&D collaboration can be obtained, 2) the legal value defined in this study can be used to evaluate patent value and the quality of R&D partnership in East Asia.