It’s difficult to define “research” and “experimentation”, but the spending seems to accomplish the goal of the tax credit:

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RL31181

>The R&E credit is intended to encourage companies to invest more in basic and applied research and some stages of development than they would if there were no such credit. The credit reduces the after-tax cost of qualified research, which in turn lowers the user cost of capital for this purpose. In theory, a reduction in the user cost of capital would increase the number of R&D investments a company could profitably undertake.

>In addition, the returns on R&D investment can spill over to consumers and other firms through access to new or improved goods and services at prices below the prices they would be willing to pay for these goods and services.4 Empirical evidence suggests that R&D spillovers are "most powerful and diffuse most rapidly at the local and national levels.