Patent Applications : An emperical study across Swedish municipalities

Abstract: The purpose with this thesis was to examine the most significant factors that affect the number of patents applications submitted on a municipality level in Sweden, with the objective to find the most significant of them. Three factors was chosen and analyzed more closely. The three factors was, investments in R&D made by firms, share of human capital and investments in R&D made by universities. Theses factors was tested against the dependent variable patent applications in three hypothesis and a stepwise regression model was conducted, with the objective to find the most significant variable. The result of the study, shows that not all of the factors had a positive effect on the number of patent applications, further the study indicated that the most significant factor for a municipality in order to have a high number of patent applications, was to have a high share of human capital.