An Evolutionary View on China’s Markets for Technology: Evidence from Patent Trades

Markets for technology have undergone remarkable changes and received considerable attention, but few studies focus on the markets of a developing country from an evolutionary perspective. Using a unique dataset of patent trades from the National Intellectual Property Administration, PRC (CNIPA), this study seeks to uncover the landscape of China’s markets for technology (CMFT) from an evolutionary view. The research findings show that (1) patent trades in the CMFT have experienced a notable increase, with an average growth rate of 22.3%; (2) the average age and geographical distance of traded patents are 6.3 years and 71.97 km; (3) spatial autocorrelation analysis shows that patent trades in the western region present increasingly stronger correlation; (4) social network analysis indicates that the patent trading network has gotten growing dense over time. We expect this descriptive study to present some basic evidence for theoretical development and consequent research about the markets for technology.