How well do patent citations measure flows of technology? Evidence from French innovation surveys

Patent citation data are used in a growing body of economics and business research on technological diffusion. Until now, there exists little evidence on whether patent citations are a good measure of knowledge flows. Our paper assesses the legitimacy of using European patent citations as a measure of technology flows. It uses information from the Community Innovation Survey collected by the French Service des Statistiques Industrielles (SESSI), which contain firms’ responses to questions about their innovative activity. We show that patent citations are indeed related to firms’ statements about their acquisition and dispersion of new technology, but that the strength and statistical significance of this relationship varies across geographical regions and across channels of knowledge diffusion.     

Inventing together: exploring the nature of international knowledge spillovers in Latin America

This paper studies the nature, sources and determinants of international patenting activity in Latin American countries (LACs) and examines the extent to which LACs benefit from R&D that is performed in the G-5 countries (France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States). By using patents and patent citations from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, we trace sectoral knowledge flows from G-5 countries to LACs. We study the impact of three channels of knowledge flows: foreign R&D, patent citation-related spillovers, and face-to-face contact spillovers. Our results, based on data for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, suggest that international knowledge spillovers from the G-5 countries were a significant determinant of inventive activity during the period 1988–2003. We find that the stock of ideas produced in the USA has a strong impact on the international patenting activity of these countries. Moreover, controlling for US-driven R&D effects, bilateral patent citations and face-to-face relationships between inventors are both important additional mechanisms of knowledge transmission. Some of our results suggest that the latter mechanism is more important than the former.     

International Knowledge Flows and Productivity: Intra- vs. Inter-Industry Spillovers

The effects of international knowledge spillovers on total factor productivity (TFP) at the industry level are examined by using a panel of 13 manufacturing industries across 15 OECD countries over 23 years. We distinguish between intra- and inter-industry spillovers from the information on patent applications and citations. Patent data are taken from the Japan Patent Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Using four alternative spatial panel estimation techniques, we find that international knowledge spillovers within the same industry significantly contribute to sectoral TFP. In contrast, there is little evidence of a positive effect of international knowledge spillovers on TFP across industries.     

THEY DON'T INVENT THEM LIKE THEY USED TO: AN EXAMINATION OF ENERGY PATENT CITATIONS OVER TIME

This article uses patent citation data to study flows of knowledge across time and across institutions in the field of energy research. Popp [2002, Induced Innovation and Energy Prices. American Economic Review, 92(1), 160–180.] finds that the level of energy-saving research and development (R&D) depends not only on energy prices, but also on the quality of the accumulated knowledge available to inventors. Patent citations are used to represent this quality. This article explores the pattern of citations in these fields more carefully. Evidence for diminishing returns to research inputs, both across time and within a given year is found. To check whether government R&D can help alleviate potential diminishing returns, special attention is paid to citations to government patents. The government patents filed in or after 1981 are more likely to be cited. More importantly, descendants of these government patents are 30% more likely to be cited by subsequent patents. Earlier government research was more applied in nature and is not cited more frequently.     

Lovely but dangerous: The impact of patent citations on patent renewal

What is the impact of patent citations on patent renewal behaviour? Patent citations are commonly used as an indicator of technology spillovers. For cited patents, therefore, patent citations have a potentially ambiguous impact. On the one hand, patent citations may indicate a scientific breakthrough, a high value of the cited patent and therefore a long survival period. On the other hand, patent citations may indicate competing innovations that render the cited patent obsolete. By discriminating patents by technology field, it is demonstrated that patents that receive citations across technology fields survive longer than other patents. Patents that receive citations within the same technology field lapse earlier.     

Investigating the determinants of patent acquisition in biotechnology: an empirical analysis

Acquiring patents is an increasingly relevant opportunity for innovating companies, especially after the rise and development of the so-called markets for technologies (MFTs). However, only scant attention has been devoted to investigate patents' characteristics influencing their acquisition by organisations. Accordingly, this paper aims at filling this gap by analysing how four main characteristics – as patent scope, scientific knowledge cited by the patent, forward patent citations, and number of patent claims – impact the likelihood of patent acquisition. We based our statistical analysis on a sample of 9716 US Patent and Trademark Office patents assigned to 165 biotechnological firms. Results support our conjectures and offer interesting managerial implications for organisations operating within MFTs indicating which characteristics make patented technological solutions more likely to be acquired by other firms, as a narrow scope, inclusion of scientific knowledge, and a number of forward citations able to increase patent's impact and exclusion rights.     

Borders and distance in knowledge spillovers: Dying over time or dying with age?—Evidence from patent citations

This paper explores the effects of distance as well as subnational and national borders on international and intranational knowledge spillovers through patent citations across the 39 most patent-cited countries and 319 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) within the U.S. In contrast to previous findings that knowledge localization fades over time, border and distance effects increase over time for the same-age citations. This increasing effect of borders and distance is associated with strengthened knowledge agglomeration over time. Nevertheless, both border and distance effects decrease with the age of patents. Aggregate border effects are often overestimated due to various aggregation bias. Moreover, business travels and knowledge quality effectively attenuate the effect of subnational borders in knowledge flows.     

INTRANATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL KNOWLEDGE FLOWS: EFFECTS ON THE FORMAL AND INFORMAL SECTORS

This article studies the effects of international and intranational knowledge flows. Contributions include comparing the effects of knowledge flows on the formal and informal sectors and determining multilateral spatial spillovers of innovation. Results show that formal entrepreneurs respect intranational intellectual property rights, but benefit from international spillovers, especially from patents granted. In contrast, informal entrepreneurs somewhat respect intranational patents granted, but not patent applications and citations. International spillovers to the informal sector are mainly from patents granted. Spillover magnitudes are greater internationally than intranationally, and greater in the informal sector than the formal sector (except for trademarks). (JEL O33, L26, K42)     

International Knowledge Diffusion and Home‐bias Effect: Do USPTO and EPO Patent Citations Tell the Same Story?*

This paper estimates the international diffusion of technical knowledge using patent citations. We control for self‐citations and for procedural differences between patent offices using equivalent patents. We find that (1) there are clear biases in patent examination processes that generate citations in the two offices; (2) at the EPO there is a strong localization effect at the country level, and the size is comparable to that found at the USPTO; (3) technological fields have different properties of diffusion in the two patent offices that do not depend on a patent office bias; (4) using EPO data, the US is not the leading country in terms of citations made and received, as occurs at the USPTO.     

The impact of foreign direct investment on innovation: Evidence from patent filings and citations in China

This paper studies how foreign direct investment (FDI) affects innovation in the host country, using matched firm-level patent data of Chinese firms. The data contain multidimensional information about patent counts and citations, which, together with an identification strategy based on Lu et al. (2017), allows us to measure innovation comprehensively and to uncover the causal relationship. Our empirical analysis shows that FDI has positive intra-industry effects on the quantity and quality of innovation, as well as radical innovation, by Chinese firms. We show that these positive effects are driven by increases in competition, rather than by knowledge spillovers from FDI which is measured by patent citations between domestic firms and foreign invested enterprises (FIEs). We further investigate the inter-industry effects of FDI and find that FDI has positive vertical effects on innovation in upstream sectors through backward knowledge spillovers.     

Exploring the effect of structural patent indicators in forward patent citation networks on patent price from firm market value

This paper introduces structural patent indicators in the forward patent citation networks (FPCNs). Using the estimates of their relationship with firm market value, it explores the effect of the structural patent indicators on patent price. When applied to US smartphone industry and US drug and biotechnology industry, the common finding is that a firm's registered patent gets higher price if influenced faster by the previously registered patents of the same firm through self-citations. The empirical results imply that merely counting forward citations, shown related to patent price by the previous works, is insufficient; the structural properties in FPCNs are essential for the more accurate estimation of patent price. They also show that the relationships between structural patent indicators in the FPCNs and patent price are different between industries. It urges the necessity of selecting structural patent indicators, well fitted to each industry, for the better patent valuation using forward citations.     

An empirical analysis of patents flows and R&D flows around the world

In this article, we empirically investigate the effect of Research and Development (R&D) flows on patent flows around the world. We do this using an unbalanced panel consisting primarily of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries that have both patent and R&D expenditure information broken down by domestic and foreign sources. Our analysis shows that even among a fairly homogeneous group of countries, the sources of patents and R&D differ substantially. Using a dynamic panel framework, we find that domestic R&D per capita increases domestic patents per capita only for the European Patent Convention (EPC) countries that already have a decentralized approach to innovation. Foreign R&D per capita increases foreign patents per capita in all countries even though foreign R&D constitutes a very small fraction of total R&D. We find that some of these differences can be attributed to the locations of the patent applications, including those to the European Patent Office (EPO), United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and triadic patent applications to the EPO, USPTO and Japan Patent Office (JPO) simultaneously.     

成渝地区专利技术双向流动网络特征、演化及启示

在新战略背景下,成渝地区必须贯彻一体化发展理念,而实现生产要素的合理流动是关键一环。技术作为生产要素中的核心组成部分,分析其流动性不仅可以了解与掌握创新体系运行状况,为人才流动和创新合作提供政策启示,还可以为促进技术、信息等流动提供科学建议。以成渝地区2002-2019年专利许可和交易数据为样本,采用社会网络分析方法,利用UCINET软件构建技术双向流动网络,基于拓扑结构和空间关联角度分析成渝地区技术双向流动网络。结果表明,成渝地区技术双向流动网络呈现为以成都和重庆主城区为核心的结构,成渝地区虽然存在技术流动但是缺乏深层次的跨区域交流,且社会关联网络整体密度较低,各子群内部融合性较差,地区内部流动分布不均衡。     

International Knowledge Flows: Evidence From Patent Citations

This paper explores the patterns of citations among patents taken out by inventors in the U.S., the U.K., Francc. Germany and Japan. We find (I) patents assigned to the same firm are more likely to cite each other, and come sooncr than other citations; (2) patents in the same patent class are approxinlatcly 100 titlles as likely to cite each other as ydtents froin different patent classes, but there is not a strong time pattern to this effect; (3) patents whose inventors reside in the same country are typically 30 to 80% more likely to cite each other than inventors from othcr countrics, and these citations come sooner; and (4) there are clear country-specific citation tendencies, e.g., Japanese citations typically come sooner than those of othcr countries.     

COLLECTIVE KNOWLEDGE,PROLIFIC INVENTORS AND THE VALUE OF INVENTIONS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF FRENCH,GERMAN AND BRITISH PATENTS IN THE US, 1975–1999

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to test two related hypotheses: The first is that the involvement of both prolific and foreign inventors in the production of knowledge has a direct, positive impact on the collective dimension of this knowledge production as measured by the size of the inventive team. The second is that the involvement of both prolific and foreign inventors has a direct, positive impact on the value of the new knowledge produced. We use detailed information from nearly 300,000 patents granted by the US Patent Office to French, German, and British inventors over the period from 1975 to 1999. From the data available from each patent regarding citations of prior patents and the numbers and identities of the inventors listed in the patent application, we are able to construct measures of collective knowledge, the presence of prolific and foreign inventors, and the imputed value of patents. In a novel approach in this literature, we estimate negative binomial multiple regression models for determining both the size of the collective dimension and the value of the patents. After controlling for the effects of years, technological fields, and patenting country, we find a strong support for the hypothesis that both prolific and foreign inventors tend to be parts of larger teams of inventors and for the hypothesis that prolific and foreign inventors tend to produce inventions having more value. In the conclusion, we draw some implications from these results for knowledge governance.     

Culture and knowledge spillovers in Europe: New perspectives for innovation and convergence policies?

Using European patent citations, we examine the geography of knowledge flows within Europe. We aim at analysing whether technologies flow more rapidly among countries that share similar economic, geographic, technological or cultural characteristics. The specificity of our approach consists in integrating indicators of culture and cultural similarity. The empirical results suggest that cultural distance has only a mitigated and moderate impact in comparison with other proximities. On the contrary, cultural belonging is shown to influence the geography of knowledge flows and innovation. More precisely, if some populations develop thanks to external knowledge exploitation, others rather explore internal new ideas and knowledge. In such a differentiated context (we find three types of culture), the efficiency of innovative policy seems to be culturally dependent.     

A Method for Identifying Actors in a Knowledge Based Cluster

The objective of the paper is to develop a method through which we can identify the actors (industrial, institutional and individual) who are active in technology development in the same or similar knowledge fields. The paper is, thus, aimed to make a methodological contribution to the literature, which has emerged on the systemic nature of innovation. The method involves broadening out from a starting point in a specific patent class, which corresponds as closely as possibly to the technological area of interest, to a set of related patent classes by using co-classifications and citations. After close scrutiny of both patent classes and patents, the actors in the new classes, as well as in the original class, are then identified. We try out the method on radio wave antennas for communication technology in Sweden. We find a range of firms and other actors in a whole set of industries, which bear little relation to one another in an input-output sense. Although we cannot ascertain the extent of linkages or relations between these actors, our hypothesis is that they constitute a cluster around radio wave antenna technology in Sweden.     

Knowledge technological proximity: evidence from US and European patents

The purpose of this paper is to explore the correlation between the technological proximity measures in three areas: USA, Japan and the Europe. In each economic area, we use information from two international patent systems to construct the technological proximity for 240 large international firms. In particular, we select firms’ patents from United States Patent and Trademarks Office data and European Patent Office data. In order to compute the technological proximity, we follow the methodology developed by Jaffe [1986. “Technological Opportunity and Spillovers of R&D: Evidence from Firms’ Patents, Profits and Market Value.” American Economic Review 76 (5): 984–1001], where a technological vector is based on the distribution of patents of each firm across technology classes. Since the Jaffe distance assumes that spillovers only occur within the same technology class, but rules out spillovers between different classes, we develop also a distance measure which exploits the Mahalanobis norm to identify the distance between different technology classes based on the frequency that patents are taken out in different classes by the same firm. The contribution to the existing literature is to investigate the robustness of the technological proximity measure and the extent to which it may be affected by patent system features.     

我国专利默示许可制度构建

由于现有制度并不能解决司法实务中面临的所有问题，因此在我国进行专利默示许可制度构建势在必行。分析指出，我国应首先完善《民法总则》中与专利默示许可相关的基础性规定，并在《专利法》中对具有普遍意义的特定情形下的专利默示许可进行明文规定。同时，应明确专利默示许可规则的确立与TRIPS协议的基本要求并不冲突。     

A New Comprehensive Patent Analysis Approach for New Product Design in Mechanical Engineering

This study proposes a five-phase procedure for a new product design process. Based on the concept of “focus first, then extend”, this study presents a new approach called the New Comprehensive Patent Analysis model (NCPA) which combines the patent family with patent citation analysis in a new product design process. The procedure includes the following features: (1) integrating the perspective of management-based and technology-based design for patent searching, (2) building a patent family based on industry basic patents, (3) filtering the patent family to obtain key patents, (4) utilizing patent citations to gain necessary technology information in product development design, and (5) combining TRIZ theory to construct patent technology performance maps, and to discover product niches. This NCPA model is empirically applied in a real case. The results show that the NCPA improves the overall efficiency of new product designs, but also involves higher cost than other approaches.