ABSTRACT
Patents are granted to protect novel inventions. With more than 3.2 billion people using the Internet in 2015 (ICT 2015), the shortened intellectual distance between countries has increased the availability and accessibility of worldwide patent information. Patents are vital for industries because of their economic impact: high patent quality leads to profitability. Research into patenting and worldwide patent offices has found that patenting activities are highly related to a country’s economic growth (WIPO 2010a, 2010b; Tu 2003; Tsai 2012); in other words, the intellectual activity in a particular country or region is a strong indicator of the economic power of that country or region (Tsai 2008).
