Abstract On the background of strategic transition for China’s steel and iron industry, technological innovative ability is central to the healthy and sustainable development of this sector. Based on the data of patents, this study comes up with an evaluation system of innovation ability for the steel and iron industry, which has fourteen indices selected from three categories: innovation direction, innovation efficiency, and innovation quality. This evaluation system is applied to the assessment of some advantageous steel and iron industry home and abroad by using the osculating value method. The results demonstrate that the quantity of domestic applicants’ patents grows very fast, but the property of original innovation for the patents is truly limited. Furthermore, the aftereffect of innovation is insufficient, and the distribution of the patents in International Patent Classification is inadequate. The evaluation also reveals that the direction of innovation is a one way process and cooperation intensity is deficient in the industry.
2017, Vol. 14 
