Technological Composition and Innovation Factors in Inventive Yangtze River Delta: Evidence from Patent Inventions
Patents as proxy for technological trends is well noted. The rapid increase of patents in China, however, has aroused debates on its technological progress: ‘few original innovations’ are produced in advanced areas, and true ‘breakthroughs’ are disproportionate to the quantity of the applications. A...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2024-02-01
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| Series: | Applied Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/5/1842 |
| _version_ | 1827319855925166080 |
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| author | Lingyue Li Lie Wang Xiaohu Zhang Lan Wang |
| author_facet | Lingyue Li Lie Wang Xiaohu Zhang Lan Wang |
| author_sort | Lingyue Li |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Patents as proxy for technological trends is well noted. The rapid increase of patents in China, however, has aroused debates on its technological progress: ‘few original innovations’ are produced in advanced areas, and true ‘breakthroughs’ are disproportionate to the quantity of the applications. As different technological fields contributions vary to technological progress, a nuanced understanding towards technological composition is in need to help reveal China’s strength in technological innovation. This research takes the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), one of China’s most inventive city-regions, as an epitome to examine the issue via three steps: (1) valid patent inventions applied from 2010 to 2018 are sorted to capture the concentration and colocation features of 35 technological fields defined by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO); (2) four types (intensive, extensive, distinctive, and supportive) of technologies exemplifying technology intensity and interactivity are identified by the cross-classification method and further analyzed by spatial autocorrelation; (3) how urban factors relate to innovation of these four types of technologies are explored. This research unveils a mixed but polarized structure of technological composition in the YRD where the spatial concentration of technologies is as analogous to the nation’s but colocation is not; though quite a few technologies fall into the intensive (usually high-tech) category which assumes to be more likely to breed ‘breakthroughs’, their numbers are limited and far less than extensive (usually labor intensive) or supportive. Knowledge exchange is frequent in core inventive cities where economic performance measured by GDP is most eminently linked to patent inventions of categorized technologies, the exception is intensive technology for which the significance of university students overrides other factors. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-25T00:35:38Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-98c14a53081b49c09f936981eca4d295 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-3417 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-25T00:35:38Z |
| publishDate | 2024-02-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Applied Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-98c14a53081b49c09f936981eca4d2952024-03-12T16:39:11ZengMDPI AGApplied Sciences2076-34172024-02-01145184210.3390/app14051842Technological Composition and Innovation Factors in Inventive Yangtze River Delta: Evidence from Patent InventionsLingyue Li0Lie Wang1Xiaohu Zhang2Lan Wang3Department of Urban Planning, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, ChinaDepartment of Urban Planning, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, ChinaDepartment of Urban Planning and Design, Faculty of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, ChinaDepartment of Urban Planning, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, ChinaPatents as proxy for technological trends is well noted. The rapid increase of patents in China, however, has aroused debates on its technological progress: ‘few original innovations’ are produced in advanced areas, and true ‘breakthroughs’ are disproportionate to the quantity of the applications. As different technological fields contributions vary to technological progress, a nuanced understanding towards technological composition is in need to help reveal China’s strength in technological innovation. This research takes the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), one of China’s most inventive city-regions, as an epitome to examine the issue via three steps: (1) valid patent inventions applied from 2010 to 2018 are sorted to capture the concentration and colocation features of 35 technological fields defined by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO); (2) four types (intensive, extensive, distinctive, and supportive) of technologies exemplifying technology intensity and interactivity are identified by the cross-classification method and further analyzed by spatial autocorrelation; (3) how urban factors relate to innovation of these four types of technologies are explored. This research unveils a mixed but polarized structure of technological composition in the YRD where the spatial concentration of technologies is as analogous to the nation’s but colocation is not; though quite a few technologies fall into the intensive (usually high-tech) category which assumes to be more likely to breed ‘breakthroughs’, their numbers are limited and far less than extensive (usually labor intensive) or supportive. Knowledge exchange is frequent in core inventive cities where economic performance measured by GDP is most eminently linked to patent inventions of categorized technologies, the exception is intensive technology for which the significance of university students overrides other factors.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/5/1842valid invention patentstechnological compositioninnovation factorsYangtze River Delta (YRD)China |
| spellingShingle | Lingyue Li Lie Wang Xiaohu Zhang Lan Wang Technological Composition and Innovation Factors in Inventive Yangtze River Delta: Evidence from Patent Inventions Applied Sciences valid invention patents technological composition innovation factors Yangtze River Delta (YRD) China |
| title | Technological Composition and Innovation Factors in Inventive Yangtze River Delta: Evidence from Patent Inventions |
| title_full | Technological Composition and Innovation Factors in Inventive Yangtze River Delta: Evidence from Patent Inventions |
| title_fullStr | Technological Composition and Innovation Factors in Inventive Yangtze River Delta: Evidence from Patent Inventions |
| title_full_unstemmed | Technological Composition and Innovation Factors in Inventive Yangtze River Delta: Evidence from Patent Inventions |
| title_short | Technological Composition and Innovation Factors in Inventive Yangtze River Delta: Evidence from Patent Inventions |
| title_sort | technological composition and innovation factors in inventive yangtze river delta evidence from patent inventions |
| topic | valid invention patents technological composition innovation factors Yangtze River Delta (YRD) China |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/5/1842 |
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