Geographic Concentration of Industry 4.0 patents in Sweden: 2010-2017

Sammanfattning: In the age of ever-growing technological advancements, delegating some of the inherently human tasks to smart machines is becoming more and more common. The possibly new wave of industrialization – Industry 4.0 – is comprised of interconnected smart technologies that could automate parts of the production and decentralize the decision-making process. The associated efficiency has prompted businesses to invent and perfect the related technologies, and governments – to support their development. However, the concept is not easily defined and studied, which could result in ineffective policymaking activities. The thesis strives to construct the first dataset on Swedish smart technology patents, map them and analyze the geographic patterns based on the previously observed developments. For instance, two main questions were posed: Does the Industry 4.0 innovation output, as measured by patents, follow the previously observed geographical patterns of patenting behavior in Sweden? Are the current Swedish Industry 4.0 patents concentrated to metropolitan areas? After the data on all related smart-tech patents invented in Sweden (2010-2017) was collected, it was shown that the innovative activity follows the expected geographic distribution, both based on the previous overall patenting activity and the development of ICT sector from the evidence of previous technology shifts. The patents were found to concentrate to metropolitan areas, although the city size cannot be directly linked to the number of patents in the rest of the regions.