TECHNOLOGY AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF PATENTS AND FIRM LOCATION IN THE SPANISH MEDICAL INSTRUMENTS INDUSTRY.

province of Barcelona), Madrid and the Community of Valencia (mainly the province
of Valencia)^ concentrated 86.4% of firms and 85.7% of employment in the medical
equipment industry, and 69.1% of the R&D expenditures in medical and health
activities.

Table 5. Spatial concentration of production and technology in the Spanish medical equipment

Notes and sources: The percentages are on the national total for each variable. The R&D data in
medical sciences are from the period 1983□1995 and come from the Annual Reports of the National
Health and Pharmacy Plans. The data on patents and utility models are from the period 1979□1995.

Table 6 shows the Patenting Index (PI) and the Relative Technological Advantage
(RTA) of each Spanish region in the medical equipment products. The Patenting Index
is defined as the number of patents granted by million of inhabitants. Two Patenting
ratios have been calculated: the first ratio (PU) only includes patent data while the
second ratio (PI2) also includes utility model data. For the first index Navarra has the
largest value (46.1 patent by million of inhabitants), followed by Catalonia (45.9) and
Madrid (30.2), and the lowest values are for Cantabria (1.9) and CastillaDLeon (0.8).
The second Index gives the largest value to Catalonia (160.4 patent and models by
million of inhabitants), followed by Madrid (122) and Navarra (76.9), while the lowest
values are for Cantabria (13.2) and CastillaDLa Mancha (7.2).

Table 6 also shows the percentage of medical equipment patents on the total patents
granted to residents in each region. The national average is 3%, which means that 3%
of the patents granted to Spanish residents between 1979 and 1995 were for inventions
related to medical equipments. Ten out of seventeen Spanish regions have higher
percentages than national average, which indicates that those regions have some degree
of patenting specialization in medical equipment in comparison to patenting in other
activities.

Table 6. Patenting Index (PI) and the Relative Technological Advantage (RTA)

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