In this study, we used patent application author information data from WIPO to analyze the innovation path different countries adopted in the past 50 years. With the aid of dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm, we first measure the similarities among the temporal sequences of the percentage of resident patent applicants (applicants that reside in the country/all applicants mentioned in the application in the country) and then use hierarchical clustering algorithm to clustering different countries’ time sequences into 6 typical innovation paths.
Let’s have a close look at trend in Europe and UK region
Overall, Germany is the most innovative country, having the largest patent applicants proportion. More specifically, the patent applicant inflows and outflows are very balanced in Germany and France. UK outputs more applicants than it inputs, while Switzerland attracts much more foreign applicants than it sends out.
