From the statistical result of the Nobel Prize’s fruits from 1901 to 2005, six phenomena were found in the Nobel Prize: International center shift of science, high proportion of the young and middle aged Noble Prize winners, long period for major discovery and recognition from society, new discoveries based on previous ones, a great teacher producing a brilliant student and the advantage’s accumulation.All of these phenomena revealed the relationship between research and social development, some characteristics of research itself as well as the dependence between research policy and scientists during the course of making science.

The paper analyzed development trends of patent activities of South Korea and Taiwan by using
statistical data, including the number of patent applications, number of patents granted respectively in their own
regions and the United States from 1988 to 2003. The results are followed: (1) Both local patent application
growth and fluctuation rates in South Korea were higher than those in Taiwan; (2) South Korea and Taiwan were
more active than any other regions on patenting in the USA; (3) South Korea’s patent application rate fluctuated
around 10%, and the application rate of Taiwan was more than 100% since Taiwanese leaned to conduct patenting
in the USA; (4) Patent grant quantities of South Korea and Taiwan in the USA grew steadily after 1997, and the
patent grant rate in South Korea had become obviously higher than that in Taiwan; (5) Korea’s patent application
rate was mainly affected by SAMSUNG, and Taiwan’s patent application rate was related with the number of its
patent applications. Finally, the article made some suggestions on the patent activity and policy in China.