Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Verspagen, Bart
Author-Email: b.verspagen@tm.tue.nl
Author-Workplace-Name: Eindhoven University of Technology
Author-Name: Nomaler, Onder
Author-Email: o.nomaler@tm.tue.nl  
Author-Workplace-Name: Eindhoven University of Technology
Title: Knowledge Flows, Patent Citations and the Impact of Science on Technology
Abstract: Technological innovation depends on knowledge developed by scientific 
	 research. The num-ber of citations made in patents to the scientific 
	 literature has been suggested as an indicator of this process of 
	 transfer of knowledge from science to technology. We provide an 
	 intersec-toral insight into this indicator, by breaking down patent 
	 citations into a sector-to-sector ma-trix of knowledge flows. We then 
	 propose a method to analyze this matrix and construct vari-ous 
	 indicators of science intensity of sectors, and the pervasiveness of 
	 knowledge flows. Our results indicate that the traditional measure of 
	 the number of citations to science literature per patent captures 
	 important aspects intersectoral knowledge flows, but that other aspects 
	 are not captured. In particular, we show that high science intensity 
	 implies that sectors are net suppli-ers of knowledge in the economic 
	 sector, but that science intensity does not say much about pervasiveness 
	 of either knowledge use or knowledge supply by sectors. We argue that 
	 these results are related to the specific and specialized nature of 
	 knowledge.
Classification-JEL: D83, C67, O33
Keywords: Knowledge, Input-Output Analysis, Knowledge Flow Matrices, 
	 Science-to-Technology Transfer, Patents
Series: UNU-MERIT Working Papers
Creation-Date: 2007
Number: 022
File-URL: http://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/wppdf/2007/wp2007-022.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 275 Kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2007022