Patent data play an important role as indicators of inventive and innovative activity across regions. This paper examines if the geographical distribution changes and in what direction if patent data are quality-adjusted. A quality index is constructed by means of factor analysis on the...

We use a comprehensive database of Swedish manufacturing and service firms to examine trends in aggregate and sectoral research productivity 1985-1998, defined as the ratio between patenting and R&D. Quality indices are composed of forward and backward citations, family size and opposition. In...