Patent citations and knowledge spillovers: an analysis of Chinese patents registered in the USA

This paper examines US patent citation data and analyses how different firms in China affect knowledge spillovers. Patents granted by the US patent office to applicants located in China are collected along with their citation counts. Two kinds of patent citations, namely citations of previous patents and those of non-patent literature, are used to measure knowledge flows. In the empirical analysis, the negative binomial and zero-inflated count models are considered. The regression results suggest the existence of heterogeneity among firms of different ownership. In terms of knowledge spillovers, the US multinational corporations perform better than those from other western countries; Taiwanese companies outperform their counterparts from Hong Kong and Chinese private corporations contribute more than Chinese state-owned enterprises. These results have important policy implications for the development of a knowledge-intensive economy in China.