Knowledge Spillovers in ICT Industry of India: Evidence from the Firm’s Patent Citation Behavior

This study examines the knowledge spillovers in Indian Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry by foreign multinational corporations using patent citation data from 2013 to 2017. Patents granted by the US patent office to applicants located in India are collected along with their citation counts. In order to examine the subject, this study applies negative binomial regression analysis. The outcome of this study shows that foreign ICT firms cited more patents with higher technology scope as compared to patents with smaller technology scope. Results also confirm the positive relationship between knowledge spillovers and geographical localization. This implies that the first inventor of both cited and citing patents share the same geographical region. However, the result of technological similarities is negative. Further, US firms citing both US and non-US patents, and non-US firms are citing more non-US patents and lesser US patents. This reveals that the knowledge flow patterns of US and non-US firms are significantly different.

Keywords: ICT Industry, Knowledge Spillovers, Multinational Corporations, Non-US Firms, Patent Citations, US Firms.