abstract
- © 2022 The AuthorsIn developing countries, the quality of patents has not been deeply analysed, despite its relevance for scaling up incentives in innovation and technology transfer. This paper fills this gap using a novel quality index for Latin-American patents (QILAP). Our quality index draws on a large sample computed for 28,998 patent families, estimating over 21.000 individual indicators. The QILAP was calculated using seven patent quality variables, including forward citations, number of inventors, and internationalisation. Besides, eight individual indexes for different scientific fields were generated; the combination of those indexes creates our novel QILAP measure. Results contribute to determining which Latin-American countries occupy a privileged position related to technology development and deliver valuable information for policy decisions.