Measuring industrial knowledge stocks with patents and papers

Under the National Innovation System (NIS) framework, knowledge stock has been recognized as a key factor for enhancing national innovative capabilities. However, despite the importance of patents and papers for measuring knowledge, previous research has not fully utilized patent and paper databases, and has instead relied on research and development (R&D) data. Therefore, in this research, I introduce a way to utilize both types of useful data when measuring industrial knowledge stocks. As primary data sources, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Web site for patents and the science citation index (SCI) for papers are used. In the case of Korea, the amount of knowledge stock proxied by patents and papers is different from that proxied by R&D, which indicates in turn that using a single indicator such as R&D may be misleading. Although the result may vary depending on the selected nation, the proposed method will be useful for gauging knowledge stocks in a more complementary way.