What drives the internationalisation of innovation? Evidence from European patent data

Abstract

This paper analyses the current internationalisation of innovation activities and identifies the main drivers for the countries of the European Union (EU). We employ patent applications at the European Patent Office covering the period 2000–2005. Our results show that the internationalisation of innovation is mainly due to an intensified co-operation between EU member states, as well as stronger ties between Europe and the USA. Innovative activity of EU enterprises is hardly globalised in the sense of being equally distributed around the world. Multivariate analysis reveals that cross-border patents between two countries increase with absolute market size of the host country, with rising levels of research and development in the home and host country and with a stronger protection of intellectual property rights in the host country. Distance between home and host country is negatively related to the number of cross-border patents. A common language between two countries and joint membership in the EU are also factors that considerably spur overseas innovation activity.