Patent-Enhancing Strategies by Industry in Korea Using a Data Envelopment Analysis

BangRae Lee, DongKyu Won, Jun-Hwan Park, LeeNam Kwon, Young-Ho Moon and Han-Joon Kim
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BangRae Lee: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Graduate School of the University of Seoul, 163 Seoulsiripdaero, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02504, Korea
DongKyu Won: Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, 66 Hoegiro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02456, Korea
Jun-Hwan Park: Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, 66 Hoegiro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02456, Korea
LeeNam Kwon: Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, 66 Hoegiro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02456, Korea
Young-Ho Moon: Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, 66 Hoegiro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02456, Korea
Han-Joon Kim: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Graduate School of the University of Seoul, 163 Seoulsiripdaero, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02504, Korea

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 9, 1-17

Abstract: Global competition has increased the importance of patents as a means to protect and strengthen technology and competitiveness. The purposes of our study were to identify what industries in South Korea are strong or weak in terms of patent applications and to identify some strategies to enable weak industries to become strong. For this, we gathered statistics on seven variables as follows: number of businesses, number of employees, research and development investment, number of full-time equivalent researchers, number of research institutions, domestic market size, and number of patent applications. Especially, to compare the ratio of patent applications and the ratio of domestic market size across industries, the industries were classified into the following three categories: strong-, weak-, and no-patent. Furthermore, data envelopment analysis (DEA) suggested some strategies to strengthen patent applications for each industry. In the DEA analysis, the number of patent applications was used as the output variable and the other six variables were used as input variables. Our study will particularly assist industries where protection by patents is an important aspect of their businesses.

Keywords: data envelopment analysis; industry analysis; market size; patent analysis; patent-strengthening strategy; R&BD infrastructure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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