Patents, Patent Applications and Spatial Innovativeness in Hungary

On the one hand the study publishes the approaches connected to the intellectual property rights and patents, on the other hand it investigates the innovativeness of the Hungarian settlements by the number of patent applications. The aim of the analyses concerning the transition period is to discover the regional disparities and to explain their causes. The study discovers a strong positive correlation between R&D costs and patent applications submitting two years later, and shows regional disparities in more dimensions as well. In spite of the re-structuring in favour of rural cities, the leading role of the capital has remained through the last decade. There have been high differences in the town hierarchy, even inside of the county towns: actually some traditional university cities have outstood. Regarding the East-West relation, the east part of the country has been dominant.