The changing composition of innovative activity in the US - a portrait based on patent analysis

In this paper, patent bibliometrics are used to investigate shifts underway in the American innovation system. Patent indicators point to extraordinarily dynamic innovation in information and health technologies accompanied by a shift in the center of US innovation from the East to the West Coast. Innovating companies are adapting to the demise of large corporate basic research laboratories by using their own research instead. Growth in university patenting is also striking, and universities have become dominant patentees in a few large, economically vibrant cities. The importance of universities to local innovation has also been revealed by the growth in referencing from patents to papers which allows us to see that companies preferentially reference papers from in-state public sector institutions. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.