Chapter:6 Science & Engineering Indicators 93
Highly Cited Inventions
The United States, with 50 percent of the total patent families recorded during the 1981-85 period, had the largest proportion of highly cited patent families--73 percent, or 8 of the 11 such families identified. (Click here for footnote 54.) (See text table 6-8 and appendix table 6-25.) With 36 percent of the total families, Japan had just 2 (18 percent) that were highly cited. Great Britain was the only other country with any patent families considered highly cited--1; it had fewer than 6 percent of the total patent families in this field.

In the 1986-90 time period, both the number of new genetic engineering inventions (patent families) and the number of technically important patent families were nearly three times that recorded during the earlier period. Japan (with 1,317 families) moved ahead of the United States (with 1,125) in terms of total number of patent families; however, the United States continues to produce the most highly cited patent families in this technology field. In fact, the United States accounted for 23 of the 35 highly cited patent families filed during the later period, and had 1.8 times as many highly cited patent families as expected based on its level of activity. Great Britain, with far fewer patent families than either Japan or the United States, produced 2.3 times the number of highly cited patent families as expected based on its level of activity.

Despite the large jump in new genetic engineering technologies originating in Japan, the United States appears to lead the other countries in terms of the technological merit of the work being done, based on this indicator. Work done in Great Britain has not produced the same number of patented inventions as in Japan or the United States, but this work does appear to represent important advancements.

Footnote 54:
Operationally, this included all families with priority application dates from 1981 to 1985 with 12 or more citations, and those with priority application dates from 1986 to 1990 with 6 or more citations.

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