Valuation of patents in emerging economies: a renewal model-based study of Indian patents

ABSTRACT

This study uses patent renewal information to estimate the private value of patents. Patent value refers to the economic reward that the inventor extracts from commercialising the patented invention. Our empirical analysis comprises 555 patents with applications filed between 1999 and 2002. The term of these patents either ended in 2018 or lapsed due to non-payment of the renewal fee. We model the renewal decision of patentee as ordered probit where patent renewal fee increases with the age of the patent. Variables, such as patent family size, technological scope, number of inventors and grant lag, are used as explanatory variables in the corresponding regression. Hence, this paper combines the patentee’s renewal decision along with patents’ characteristics and renewal cost schedule to estimate the initial rent distribution. We find that a large number of patents expire at an early stage leaving few patents with high value corroborating the results of studies using European, American and Chinese data. As expected, patents from certain technology class enjoy high valuation.     

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.     

专利特征对加入专利池的影响——基于MPEG LA的实证研究

什么特征的专利更容易加入专利池？以MPEGLA专利池内1073件专利与池外1073件控制专利为样本,实证研究专利技术范围、权利与地域范围、审批与维持时间、前向与后向引用对加入专利池的影响。结果表明,技术和地域覆盖范围越广,维持时间越长,专利引用与被引数次越多,越有可能加入专利池;专利审批时间越长,非专利文献引用越多,越难加入专利池;权利要求范围对专利能否入池无显著影响。研究结论对企业专利文件撰写、专利入池申请及专利池管理机构开展专利评估具有重要意义。     

Commercialization,renewal, and quality of patents

One of the major reasons why inventors are awarded patents by governments is they encourage R&D investments and commercialization of inventions. If the patent holder commercializes his/her invention, he/she has stronger incentives to retain the patent. The purpose here is to empirically analyze the relationship between commercialization and the renewal of patents. At the same time, I take into account defensive patent strategies (e.g. deterring competitors from utilizing the patent) and pointedly ask if there are any third factors (quality of the patent) that affect the commercialization and renewal decisions. Using a detailed database of Swedish patents, I utilize a survival model to estimate how commercialization influences the patent renewal decision. Basic results show not only that commercialization and defensive strategies increase the probability a patent will be renewed, but also that quality influences commercialization and renewal decisions. When controlling for the endogenous commercialization decision, there is still a strong positive relationship between commercialization and renewal of patents. Thus, given the quality of the patent, if the owner decides to commercialize the patent on the margin, this leads to longer survival of the patent. With regard to commercialization modes, there is some evidence that licensed patents and patents commercialized in original and new firms – but not acquired patents – survive longer than non-commercialized patents. Looking more closely at the contracts of acquired and licensed patents, contracts with both variable and fixed fees – but not contracts with either variable or fixed fees – survive longer than non-commercialized patents. However, the analysis about modes and contract terms does not take into account the endogeneity problem.     

市场信号、技术特征与中国国际高质量专利

近年来,中国专利申请量与授权量得到了快速飞跃,然而“专利泡沫”“专利沉睡”等问题也日益凸显,如何有效促进专利数量到专利质量的转变是实现专利强国的关键。本文基于信号传递理论,构建了市场信号与技术特征共同影响国际高质量专利形成的理论模型,并利用中国在美国专利与商标局(USPTO)申请的专利数据进行了实证检验。研究结果表明:市场信号有助于传递积极的专利信号与打破信息不对称,推动形成国际高质量专利;技术特征能够扩大专利自身的技术范围与技术合作空间,与国际高质量专利也存在显著正向关系;此外,技术特征能够产生技术噪音与技术竞争压力,弱化信号传递效率,从而负向调节市场信号对国际高质量专利的促进效应。本文认为与市场上的普通商品一样,专利存在“酒香也怕巷子深”问题,一方面企业应该加强专利国际推广;另一方面政府需要进一步完善市场机制与减弱信息不对称,共同塑造中国国际高质量专利。     

Monitoring the organic structure of technology based on the patent development paths

As the strategic importance of understanding changes in technology for successful business of most firms increases, the ability to analyze and monitor the current stage and history of technology is reckoned as a critical asset both for gaining competitive advantage and identifying promising niches. Patent citation networks have been widely used for systematic and empirical analysis of technology development. Understanding of technology's detailed changes in large patent citation networks, however, is difficult to achieve because of these networks' large and complex structures. To overcome this problem, we suggest an algorithm that identifies patent development paths from a large patent citation network by evaluating the weight of citations between patents. We then apply this algorithm to flash memory patents in an empirical study. Our algorithm is a new methodology that can be used to analyze the dynamic and complex structure of individual technologies.     

Trajectory patterns of technology fusion: Trend analysis and taxonomical grouping in nanobiotechnology

The potential of technology fusion has been advanced as a promising breakthrough function to create hybrid technologies. Despite its importance, however, the evolutionary path of technology fusion is yet unexplored. In this paper, by employing the case of nanobiotechnology, we attempt to deepen understanding of the development trajectories of technology fusion in three important aspects. The first aspect is the development of an index that measures the degree of fusion of cross-disciplinary technology at the meso level. The second aspect is to classify the trajectory patterns of technology fusion in terms of fusion degree. We analyze fusion mechanism by utilizing citation network analysis. The third aspect is to visualize the relationship between patents and their backward and forward patent citations, at the patent class level, with their direction on a citation map. This facilitates understanding of the overview as well as fusion patterns. The changes in fusion patterns are analyzed using time series comparisons. An empirical analysis in the nanobiotechnology field shows no positive relationship between the inflow and outflow degree of fusion. We also observe changes in the trajectory patterns of fusion over time. Analysis demonstrates that each fusion pattern has evolved in such a way that technologies focus more on their niche technologies, and that those technologies which cannot incorporate the technology fusion have been eliminated during the development process.     

Patent text mining and informetric-based patent technology morphological analysis: an empirical study

Patent technology morphological analysis utilises the advantages of both patent information analysis and morphological analysis to provide more detailed information on current and future patent technology. Current patent technology morphological analysis methods are largely reliant on manual expertise in the construction of morphological boxes with few approaches to the evaluation of future morphological configurations. We developed a patent text mining and informetric-based patent technology morphological analysis technique. We defined the basic parameters of the morphological box as the factors in factor analysis, with a patent keywords matrix, and the clusters in clustering analysis with factor scores. Patent citation, year of patent registration, keyword frequency, and contributing factors were used to evaluate future morphological configurations. We used an empirical study of liquid crystal display wide viewing angle patents to validate our method. The Thomson Reuters Derwent Innovation Index was used to collect patent text datasets. Our study indicates that this method is feasible for the implementation of patent technology morphological analysis. Our method provides advantages in terms of cost and time reductions during morphological box construction and more flexible methods for evaluating morphological configurations. We discuss problems and possible development of our method in the last section.     

Technology variation vs. R&D uncertainty: What matters most for energy patent success?

R&D is an uncertain activity with highly skewed outcomes. Nonetheless, most recent empirical studies and modeling estimates of the potential of technological change focus on the average returns to research and development (R&D) for a composite technology and contain little or no information about the distribution of returns to R&D – which could be important for capturing the range of costs associated with climate change mitigation policies – by individual technologies. Through an empirical study of patent citation data, this paper adds to the literature on the outcomes of energy R&D by focusing on the behavior of the most successful innovations for six energy technologies, allowing us to determine whether uncertainty or differences in technologies matter most for success. We highlight two key results. First, we compare the results from an aggregate analysis of six energy technologies to technology-by-technology results. Our results show that existing work that assumes diminishing returns but assumes one generic technology is too simplistic and misses important differences between more successful and less successful technologies. Second, we use quantile regression techniques to learn more about patents that have a high positive error term in our regressions – that is, patents that receive many more citations than predicted based on observable characteristics. We find that differences across technologies, rather than differences across quantiles within technologies, are more important. The value of successful technologies persists longer than those of less successful technologies, providing evidence that success is the culmination of several advances building upon one another, rather than resulting from one single breakthrough. Diminishing returns to research activities appear most problematic during rapid increases of research investment, such as experienced by solar energy in the 1970s.     

基于指数随机图模型的专利技术扩散机制实证研究

网络嵌入视角下专利技术扩散路径间存在相关性，但这种网络内生性影响并未在已有研究中得到足够重视。将扩散因素归纳为：专利价值、专利保护、多维同配、结构嵌入，从扩散网络内生、外生因素两个方面构建分析模型，并以石墨烯领域为例，采用指数随机图模型，开展实证研究。实证结果说明：专利价值、技术、地理、组织层面同配性、闭合三角结构嵌入均正向促进专利技术扩散，而专利保护强度反向抑制技术扩散。值得注意的是，专利技术扩散存在强烈的结构嵌入倾向，融合网络内、外生因素的模型能够更好地捕捉专利技术扩散机制。     

Technology variation vs. R&D uncertainty: What matters most for energy patent success?

R&D is an uncertain activity with highly skewed outcomes. Nonetheless, most recent empirical studies and modeling estimates of the potential of technological change focus on the average returns to research and development (R&D) for a composite technology and contain little or no information about the distribution of returns to R&D – which could be important for capturing the range of costs associated with climate change mitigation policies – by individual technologies. Through an empirical study of patent citation data, this paper adds to the literature on the outcomes of energy R&D by focusing on the behavior of the most successful innovations for six energy technologies, allowing us to determine whether uncertainty or differences in technologies matter most for success. We highlight two key results. First, we compare the results from an aggregate analysis of six energy technologies to technology-by-technology results. Our results show that existing work that assumes diminishing returns but assumes one generic technology is too simplistic and misses important differences between more successful and less successful technologies. Second, we use quantile regression techniques to learn more about patents that have a high positive error term in our regressions – that is, patents that receive many more citations than predicted based on observable characteristics. We find that differences across technologies, rather than differences across quantiles within technologies, are more important. The value of successful technologies persists longer than those of less successful technologies, providing evidence that success is the culmination of several advances building upon one another, rather than resulting from one single breakthrough. Diminishing returns to research activities appear most problematic during rapid increases of research investment, such as experienced by solar energy in the 1970s.     

Scale And Scope In Technology: Large Firms 1930/1990

We examine historical empirical patterns of change in corporate. technological scale and scope. Much literature on scale and scope by business and economic historians has conflated product markets and technology together. However, given the technologically complex environment of the late twentieth century, the relationship between scale and scope in production and products is not simple, and conflated discussions may be naive. Consequently we have two aims. Firstly, we wish to see if technological scale and scope follow the historical pattern of broader notions of scale and scope. Secondly, given increasing technological complexity, we consider whether the nature of corporate technological scope has changed over time.

Using data drawn from the University of Reading's patents database, we examine the technological activities in 32 of the world's historically largest patenting firms over the period 1930 to 1990. Shin-sham analyses based on panel-data regressions examine the different influences on technologicascope over time. A technological trend closely resembling that of broader notions of scale to scope is observable in most of the sectors. although it does not proceed uniformly. We also find, that whilst increases in corporate technological scope through diversification are not particularly linked to technological relatedness in recent times, they are periodically influenced by the rise of pervasive, fast-growing new technologies.     

基于关键节点与关键路径的专利集群网络演进研究

专利作为技术和知识的重要载体，是研究技术演进和产业发展的重要信息源。目前缺乏针对专利集群网络中关键节点与关键路径中节点的比较分析和技术知识挖掘。构建基于关键节点和关键路径的专利集群网络演进模型，从两个层面综合分析技术演进特征。检索德温特数据库(Derwent Innovation Index)得到碳化硅肖特基势垒二极管（SiC-SBD）相关专利作为实证数据，时间跨度为1986-2017年。结果表明，SiC-SBD专利集群网络经历了萌芽期、成长期、成熟期和衰退期，其中，萌芽期专利主要涉及基础技术，成长期为器件结构，以完善器件结构、改进二极管性能为主要研究方向。近年来SiC-SBD专利年增长率下降，技术发展速度放缓，专利价值更多体现在其商业价值上。SiC-SBD专利集群网络关键节点与关键路径中节点重合度较高，核心专利识别可通过多视角分析得到。通过关键节点与关键路径分析专利集群网络演进过程，有助于更全面呈现技术演进过程，为决策者识别核心专利、预测技术发展提供参考。     

Patterns of technology life cycles: stochastic analysis based on patent citations

Patent analysis has been considered as an effective means of estimating phases of a technology life cycle. However, previous studies have not considered the dynamic and idiosyncratic aspects of a technology’s progression since they were based on deterministic methods, mainly fitting s- or double s-shaped curves to patent application counts. Moreover, previous methods cannot be executed at the individual patent level. We propose a stochastic technology life cycle analysis to trace the phases of a technology’s progression based on patent citations and identify the patterns of technology life cycles at the individual patent level. At the heart of the proposed approach are a hidden Markov model to estimate the probability of a system being at a certain hidden state from observation and cluster analysis to group a set of objects according to their similarities. A case study of patents about laser technology in lithography is presented.     

地理邻近与知识产权——基于中国1 331项新能源技术发明专利的实证研究

虽然远程交流技术快速发展，但现有研究表明专利发明在很大程度上仍依赖于信息的地理邻近。以中国1992-2009年的1 331个新能源发明专利为研究对象，运用Jung Wonn,Jaffe等的实验设计方法，研究了专利引证的地理邻近是否会随时间递进而增大。结果表明，个人、大学、公司及其它种类发明专利引证的地理邻近会随着时间变化而增大，而政府受到的影响较小。另外，由于区域城市分属不同省份，因此并不能证明区域专利引证的地理邻近也会随着时间变化而增大。     

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.     

Licensing Tacit Knowledge: Intellectual Property Rights And The Market For Know-How

Technology transfer involves more than just the permission to use knowledge covered by patents; the transfer of know-how is critical to the successful utilization of the transferred technology. However, know-how is typically difficult to codify, costly to transfer, and hence, difficult to contract upon. Using a principal-agent model I show that simple arms length contracts can accomplish the transfer know-how. The key to the success of arms length contracts is the complementarity between know-how and patents. The model explains why patents and know-how are bundled together in licensing contracts. It shows why licensing has limitations as a strategy for appropriating rents from innovation. The paper points to the key role that patent scope plays in determining the efficiency of know-how transfer and shows that broader patents can improve the efficiency of technology transfer, even when important components of the technology (know-how) are not protected by patents.     

基于机器学习的专利质量评价研究

随着专利数量的迅猛增长，专利质量问题日益凸显，专利质量评价成为学者关注焦点。面对海量专利数据，如何构建有效的专利质量评价方法，实现对专利质量的准确评价和分类是一项急迫的工作。首先，通过对国内外相关专利质量评价研究进行系统调研和梳理，提出一种新的专利质量评价指标体系；其次，根据新的专利质量评价指标体系，构建一种基于机器学习的专利质量评价方法；最后，以人工智能技术专利为例进行实证研究。结果表明，有效综合利用专利技术性、经济性、法定性和主体性评价指标，有助于更加全面、深入地评价专利质量；基于机器学习的专利质量评价方法能够迅速对专利进行分类并识别高质量专利，从而提高专利质量评价结果深度，为实现大规模专利质量分类评价智能化提供可能。     

论人工智能生成发明的可专利性及权利归属

当前，人工智能发明对专利客体范围、专利“三性”审查标准及专利权属制度造成巨大冲击。就专利客体而言，在“算法＋技术”规则的指引下，可将人工智能生成的技术方案明确为方法类专利客体；在专利“三性”审查方面，借鉴人工智能技术中立优势对相关发明进行“新式审查”，可以化解对传统审查方式的冲击；在专利权属制度设计上，基于产业政策和利益平衡考量，构建以人工智能投资者为核心、辅之以意思自治原则的专利权属制度成为必然。     

Tracking the technological composition of industries with algorithmic patent concordances

ABSTRACT

Patents are a useful proxy for innovation, technological change, and diffusion. However, fully exploiting patent data for economic analyses requires linking patents to measures of economic activity, which has proven to be difficult. We construct probabilistic linkages between the U.S. Patent Classification (USPC) system and Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) system and industry and product classifications including the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS), International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), Harmonized System (HS) and Standard International Trade Classification (SITC). We use these concordances to evaluate the persistence of technology-industry relationships over time by generating linkages over different years of patent data. We find strong persistence in technology usage within industries and, until recently, relatively little change in the technology composition of industries over time. As the technology composition of industries becomes more stable, we find evidence of increased specialization. Finally, we show that industries that exhibit changing technology composition also show shifting occupational composition.