Chapter 6: Science & Engineering Indicators 93
Highly Cited Inventions
Japan led all countries--and by a wide margin--with 67.5 percent (36 of 53) of all highly cited robot technology patents (Click here for footnote 51.)generated during the 1981-85 period. France (with 11.2 percent of the highly cited patents), West Germany (9.8 percent), and the United States (9.6 percent) trailed distantly. (See appendix table 6-23.) Japan and France each had about 1.6 times the number of highly cited inventions as expected based on their levels of activity (i.e., their total numbers of families). (See text table 6-5.) West Germany, the United States, and Great Britain did not produce the expected number of highly cited inventions. Specifically, West
Germany produced only 80 percent of what might be expected based on the number of inventions it produced during this period, and the United States and Great Britain produced about half of what was expected. Japan and France thus appear to have
contributed a disproportionate number of important robot inventions relative to their level of inventive activity.
In the 1986-90 time period, the United States caught up with Japan in terms of number of highly cited families: Each country had nearly 41 percent of highly cited families for that time. Rankings for the other countries did not change substantially.
Although the United States and Japan each had the same share of highly cited families, this represented a much larger share for the United States when adjusted for level of activity. The United States had twice the number of highly cited inventions
as would be expected based on its share of all families, while Japan fell short (producing 90 percent of what was expected). This suggests that even though Japan had a higher number of robot inventions, U.S. inventions were more technologically
important.
Footnote 51:
Operationally, these included all families with priority application dates from 1981 to 1985 with five or more citations, and those with priority application dates from 1986 to 1990 with two or more citations.
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