THE DUAL EFFECTS OF A COUNTRY’S OVERSEAS PATENT NETWORK LAYOUT ON ITS EXPORT: SCALE-UP OR QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

It is an important measure for a country to consolidate and enhance its international competitiveness by constructing an overseas patent network. In this paper, we study the mechanism and dual effects of a country’s overseas patent network on its export performance from the perspectives of the breadth, depth and quality of the network by using the overseas patent data of 60 countries from 2000 to 2018. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) The breadth and depth of overseas patent network and the proportion of the overseas invention patent applications have significant positive influences on a country’s export quantity and export quality, while the proportion of patent applications in developed countries is negatively related to export quantity and export quality. (2) The effect of the breadth of overseas patent network on export quantity is “U-shaped”, and the effect on export quality is “reversed U-shaped”. Besides, the “reversed U-shaped” relationship can also be found between the depth of overseas patent network and export quantity and export quality. We also find that some countries have excessive patent layouts in developed countries. (3) The heterogeneity analysis reveals that differences in types of countries and patents can affect the effects of the overseas patent network. For example, both the breadth of overseas patent network and the proportion of the overseas invention patent applications have greater impacts on export quantity in the developed country than in the developing country, while the effects of the depth of overseas patent network and the proportion of patent applications in developed countries on export quantity and export quality in the developing country are greater than those in the developed country. The study makes a marginal contribution to the existing theories about the impact of the overseas patent network on export performance, and provides some theoretical references for countries, especially developing countries, about adjusting overseas patenting strategies.