Institutions-first or Technology first Development Models: China vs the USA

The dataset used in this study consists of 279,231 USPTO-granted patents, covering firms from 26 countries across 347 cities and classified into 137 NACE industrial codes. Each patent is treated as the unit of analysis and is mapped into 13 major technological sectors, spanning high-, medium-, and low-technology domains based on OECD and Eurostat technology-intensity classifications. The data are drawn exclusively from granted patents at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to ensure a consistent institutional examination standard for cross-country comparison, with both Chinese and U.S. patents evaluated within the same legal framework. The dataset further includes patent-level attributes such as B1/B2 patent type, firm age, and city-level geographic concentration measures, along with national population controls. This structure enables a sectoral-level analysis of relative technological strength and supports comparative assessment of innovation trajectories between China and the United States within a unified patent system.