Layout of Foreign Countries (Regions) in China's Nano-market: A Perspective from Patent Analysis

Patents are the manifest output of nation's market layout. This paper explores the arrangement of five nanotechnology market fields of foreign countries (regions) in China, including Nano-materials, Nano-electronics & information, Nano-biology & medical, Measurement & detection and Mechanical & process. The results showed that foreign countries (regions) have become more interested in China's nano-markets, and the number of patents exhibited rapid growth after the year of 2000. In the overall market layout of foreign countries, nano-materials and nano-electronics & information were the most important fields. Furthermore, different countries have different priorities in market layout. U.S. market arrangement was consistent with the overall layout of foreign countries (regions), Japan, Korea and Taiwan have paid much more attention to nano-electronics & information market in China. While in Germany layout, nano-materials market apparently held the leading position.