Determinants of Patent Activity and the Formation of Comparative Advantages in Selected European Economies

This paper examines the relationship between innovation performance and international export competitiveness in four EU countries—Germany, Italy, Czechia, and Slovakia—during the period 2015–2024. The primary objective is to identify the relationship between the number of patent applications to the European Patent Office (EPO) and two key R&D input indicators: R&D expenditure per capita and the number of researchers and engineers per million inhabitants. Simultaneously, the study utilizes the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index to evaluate export specialization in medium-to-high innovation-intensive commodity groups. Although there are numerous studies on innovation, patents, or the significance of research and development, only rarely are these indicators linked to the competitiveness of countries according to comparative advantages in individual sectors. The results of the correlation analysis reveal significant national disparities: while a strong dependency was confirmed in Italy and Slovakia, the findings for Germany show a negative correlation, suggesting that German patenting activity is driven by factors beyond the examined R&D inputs. Panel regression also points out that simple correlation may not be able to clearly capture this relationship, as it may manifest itself with a time lag. From an absolute perspective, Germany maintains a leading position in all indicators, yet Italy demonstrates higher patent efficiency compared to Czechia despite having fewer researchers. The RCA analysis further highlights that while Germany and Italy maintain comparative advantages in high-innovation sectors, Czechia and Slovakia predominantly specialize in medium-innovation-intensive industries.