As technological innovation has become central to national competitiveness, enhancing the quality of patents generated through national R&D projects has emerged as a critical policy issue. This study develops a set of Patent Development Activity Indicators to quantitatively evaluate the activities in the patent development process and empirically analyzes their relationship with patent quality.

A survey was administered to research units and programs engaged in national R&D projects. Based on the responses, t-tests and regression analyses were performed to examine the relationship between the development activity indicators and patent quality, measured by the SMART3 Composite Index and the Legal Robustness Index. The results indicated that groups actively conducting patent development activities exhibited significantly higher patent quality than passive groups. Furthermore, activities such as prior art search, filing strategy formulation, pre-filing examinations, and patent-related education had statistically significant positive effects on both overall and legal patent quality.

These findings suggest that incorporating process-based indicators into outcome-focused R&D evaluation systems can effectively promote high-quality patent outcomes. Among all activities, “Formulation and Application of the Patent Filing Strategy” emerged as the most influential variable across both quality dimensions. This underscores the potential of adopting these indicators as performance metrics in national R&D programs to drive improvements in patent quality. The study offers meaningful implications for designing future policies and performance management systems in IP-centered innovation strategies.