Abstract
To reveal how much the Japanese patents depend upon scientific knowledge, we constructed an original Japanese patent database and analyzed science linkage in samples of patents, which have been patented and published since 1993 till 1999, in the field of genetic technology. We found that, in Japan, patents in the field of genetic technology have much stronger science linkage than other patents do. Also, we found that Japanese patents have numerous citations. In addition, unlike the US patents, most Japanese patent citations are embedded in the main body of application text and they are not standardized. To pursue farther research, the need for creation of latest search program, which extracts citations and standardize them from crude Japanese patent database, became apparent.
