What Do Patent Data Reveal? The Case of Turkish Manufacturing Industries

Abstract

This paper investigates the innovative capabilities of the Turkish economy by using a new Turkish patent data set for the period 1985-1999. The technological composition of the granted patents is presented by making a distinction between resident and non-resident applicants. The so-called auto-sufficiency and revealed technological advantage indices are calculated to determine whether the sector under consideration is self-sufficient in terms of generating its own technology. Finally, resident applications/grants are grouped according to their sources of innovations (i.e., academics, individuals, public and private corporations) in order to ascertain the innovative capabilities of each sub-group.