China's urban digital patent scale and patent knowledge breadth: Spatial-temporal evolution characteristics and influencing factors

The core driving force of the digital economy is digital technology. Based on scientific identification of digital technology patents using text analysis, this paper employs a variety of spatial statistical methods to characterize the spatiotemporal evolution of the scale and knowledge breadth of digital technology patents in China's 284 prefecture-level cities from 2000 to 2018, as well as their influencing factors. We found that: (1)From a temporal perspective, digital technology patents in China show a steady annual growth trend in scale, while knowledge breadth exhibits an “N” shaped variation. From a spatial structure perspective, the scale of digital technology patents in the eastern coastal region is larger compared to the central and western regions, while the latter has a certain advantage in knowledge breadth. (2) The digital technology patent scale exhibits distinct “economic dependency” and spatial agglomeration characteristics, whereas the knowledge breadth of digital technology patents does not show significant spatial agglomeration but displays “anti- economic dependency”. (3)From a spatial correlation perspective, there is significant spatial autocorrelation in patent scale, while spatial autocorrelation in knowledge breadth is absent. Meanwhile, regardless of scale or quality dimensions, there are certain regional agglomeration and spillover phenomena in urban circles in developed coastal areas. (4)Empirical analysis shows that urban economic development level, the level of financial development,R&D investment level, and human capital accumulation may be possible reasons for the spatial differentiation characteristics mentioned above. Building on the above conclusions, this paper provides relevant insights and recommendations.