Research On Multi-dimensional Integrated Innovation From Perspective Of Patent Standardization

Integrated innovation is one of two major goals of the eleventh Medium to Long-Term Science and Technology Development Plan of China, and an important form of innovation for the new knowledge-based economy. Furthermore, with on-going globalization and informationalization, especially with the enactment and implementation of WTO/TBT, the patent-based standard has become a critical means to enhance market competitiveness and to control technological development. Unfortunately, China's patent standardization process is far behind developed nations. Therefore, integrated innovation and patent standardization are two important issues for China to improve its innovation ability. This thesis is to study how to make patent standardization happen within the framework of integrated innovation. This research thus is not only theoretically important, but also practically relevant.Based on the relevant research in this area, we develop a conceptual framework which allows us to study patent standardization within the theoretical framework of integrated innovation. We start with the firm-level patent standardization, and then thoroughly study how integrated innovation affects patent standardization at both macro and micro levels with quantitative research methods and case studies. Our main results shed considerable light on the relevant issues.First, based on the ICS, we study the relationship between standards and patents in China. Different from previous studies, we collect the empirical data of China based on Blind (2004). Our empirical results suggest that patents and standards are interdependent. This finding motivates our entire study in this thesis.Second, we study patent standardization within the theoretical framework of integrated innovation. We focus on nine firms in the opto-electronic information industry in Wuhan Donghu National Self-innovation Demonstration Area in our case study. Based on these cases, we derive models for patent standardization. From both internal and external integration perspectives, we develop a framework within which there are five internal integration mechanisms and seven external integration mechanisms. We also propose six factors that can hinder patent standardization.Third, based on a game theory model, we show that the government subsidy can positively affect patent standardization in high tech industries. We use the government subsidy as the proxy for the country-level integrated innovation, and look at the ICT market and the commercialization of TD-SCDMA in China. Based on our theoretical analysis, we show that the government subsidy is important for the success of the TD-SCDMA technology standard in the Chinese 3G market. Our results therefore suggest that the country-level integrated innovation is critical for patent standardization in China.Finally, we develop an evaluation indicator system of integrated innovation within the NIC framework for the purpose of promoting patent standardization. Based on the definition of national capacity of integrated innovation, we develop an evaluation system from the perspective of patent standardization. This system is featured by the key role of the government in the process of efficiently allocating resources and promoting knowledge spillover, which is an extension to the current research on national innovation capacity.