I would like to give a hint to a new study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) titled Germany as a Place for Innovation ("Innovationsstandort Deutschland"), which is however only available in German. The report is based essentially on patent data analysis concerning EPO, USPTO and WIPO patent data.
The results are less than flattering for Germany:
Concerning most fields of ICT and consumer electronics, German industry has lost ground to an extent which appears to be irreversible. The report recommends to abandon all programs for state subsidies so far because of the gap to the world's leading nations is too wide to be ever bridged again by German companies.
With regard to some fields like biotechnology, hybrid materials, and nanotechnology there seems to be a glimmer of hope for the German industry to reach pole positions. The recommendation is that the state might well consider further funding of research in this area of economy.
German industry is still on top in some fields like automotive technology, health care technology and others. However, these are more or less old-fashioned traditional areas of technology.
The document describes the methodology of patent data mining and patent maps as used for the study. The authors appear to have used Aureka from MicroPatent.
to a new study by 