International collaboration and spatial dynamics of US patenting in Central and Eastern Europe 1981-2010

How did post-socialist transition and a parallel shift in international labor division restructure regional innovation systems in Central and Eastern Europe? This question is increasingly important, because current EU innovation policy is combined with regional development in Smart Specialization Strategies; however, spatial trends of innovation in Central and Eastern Europe are not fully understood which might lead to less than perfectly efficient policy. In this paper we describe the spatial dynamics of inventor activity in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia between 1981 and 2010 –a period that covers both the late socialist era and the post-socialist transition. Cleaning and analyzing the publicly available data from the United States Patent and Trademark Office we illustrate that Central and Eastern European patents made in international co-operations with partners outside the region receive more citations than those Central and Eastern European patents that lack international co-operation. Furthermore, the technological portfolio of the former patents has become increasingly independent from the technological portfolio of the latter class. A town-level analysis of the applicant-inventor ties reveals that inventors have started to work for foreign assignees in those towns where no innovation activity had been recorded before. However, the positive effect does not last long and patenting seems to be only periodic in the majority of these towns. Therefore, innovation policy in Central and Eastern European countries, as well as in other less developed regions, shall foster synergies between international and domestic collaborations in order to decrease regional disparities in patenting.

后社会主义转型与国际劳动分工的并行变革，如何重构中东欧（Central and Eastern Europe）的区域创新体系？这一问题的重要性日益凸显：当前欧盟（European Union）的创新政策已与智能专业化战略（Smart Specialization Strategies）框架下的区域发展深度结合，但学界对中东欧地区创新活动的空间分布趋势尚未形成充分认知，这可能导致政策实施效率未能达到最优水平。本研究聚焦1981至2010年这一涵盖社会主义晚期与后社会主义转型两个阶段的时期，分析捷克、匈牙利、波兰与斯洛伐克四国的发明人活动空间动态特征。通过清洗并分析美国专利商标局（United States Patent and Trademark Office）公开的专利数据，本研究发现：中东欧地区与区域外合作伙伴开展国际合作产生的专利，其被引频次高于未开展国际合作的中东欧本土专利；此外，前者的技术组合与后者的技术组合之间的独立性正不断增强。针对申请人与发明人关联关系的城镇级分析显示，此前未记录有创新活动的城镇中，发明人已开始为外国专利权人开展研发工作。但这一积极效应并未持续太久，多数此类城镇的专利活动仅呈现周期性特征。因此，中东欧国家及其他欠发达地区的创新政策，应推动国际合作与国内合作之间的协同效应，以缩小专利活动的区域差距。