Abstract Foreign patenting in the U.S. has been considered to be a useful technology indicator in comparisons between countries. In order to shed light on this topic, this paper will try to explain foreign patenting in the U.S. by way of data for one country - Norway. A crucial question is what role is played by exports in explaining the foreign patent activity. Is the U.S. patenting just an indicator of the export performance, or is it the other way around; that technology - measured by foreign patent activity - is an important trade explanatory variable. The first part of this paper deals with the relationship between Norwegian U.S. patenting and export to the U.S. by way of time-series analysis on data from 1883 to 1980. Then some more detailed analysis are done on industry-level data from 1920 and from 1960–1980. An hypothesis is further tested for the possible relationship between foreign U.S. patenting and the international business-cycles. Finally a detailed but tentative analysis is done on firm-level data for the years 1969–1980. The results lend partial support to the assumption that foreign U.S. patent activity reflects innovative activity in the country where the patents originated. A major advantage in using foreign patenting in the U.S. as a technology indicator, is that this type of data in general seems to be of a higher quality than domestic patent data.
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