Where actual inventive performance is concerned, however, patenting
activity appears to provide the best measure of national inventiveness.
4 The first specific measure consists simply of identifying
the level of domestic patenting activity both generally and in the
specific technology areas mentioned previously. But because
patenting systems and the laws governing intellectual property rights
vary across countries, a useful complementary measure of inventiveness
consists of measuring not simply domestic patenting but
patents sought and secured by inventors in foreign countries, especially
the United States. Patenting in the United States is actually
an appropriate metric for assessing the inventiveness of all other
countries, since the United States not only has an excellent and wellorganized
patent office but is also the wealthiest country, whose