Networks of innovators: Evidence from Canadian patents

Various forms of cooperative development have emerged in recent years, in response to increasing competitive pressures, development costs, and complexity. We use data on patents granted by the Canadian government between 1978 and 1989, in order to explore the formation of development coalitions, where two or more firms jointly develop and patent an innovation. Close to 2,600 firms have been involved in development coalitions. These coalitions can be mapped into more than 1,000 independent networks of innovators. The largest network interconnects 711 organizations. The prevalence of development coalitions varies considerably across nations. Two-thirds of the Japanese firms holding more than five patents are involved in at least one development coalition. This figure is less than 20% for Canadian and American firms, and 35% for German firms. Coalitions tend to be domestic rather than international. They also tend to be intra-sectorial, except in Japan where they are more frequently inter-sectorial. Our analysis indicates that Japanese development networks are very loose, just as they are for their American and European counterparts.