Implementing Bayh-Dole-like laws: Faculty problems and their impact on university patenting activity

The implementation of a Bayh-Dole-like legislation outside the US is still a major concern that needs to be addressed. I fill this gap in two ways. First, I report the results of a faculty survey on obstacles to patenting activity in Italian universities, targeted both to inventors and to those non-inventors which reported to engage in university patenting activity and to give up before any patents could be filed. Second, I investigate their effect in a regression model using universities’ patent counts as the dependent variable. Results show that obstacles to university patenting activity reduce to four dimensions: lack of support mechanisms (including insufficient reward for researchers, lack of a TTO, lack of funds to cover patenting costs), commercialisation problems, too heavy teaching and administrative duties, and personal/cultural problems (related to the scarce knowledge of institutional-level patent regulations and to the “open science” mentality of the university). Among them, however, only the lack of support by the university administration reduces the patent counts. Publication productivity has an inverted U-shaped relation with patent counts, but the overall effect is still largely positive, given the current publication levels.     

企业专利行为及其影响因素 ——基于浙江的分析

 国内外关于企业专利行为及其影响因素的研究有较多争议。本文通过对浙江企业的实证调查分析指出,专利保护的加强提高了企业的专利意识,促进了企业的专利活动。同时,专利产出还与企业规模、产业规模正相关。目前,私营企业已经成为我国专利活动的主力,但私营企业的专利能力与外资企业还有很大的差距,有专利活动的私营企业的数量也太少。总体上,我国企业的技术与专利能力、专利技术市场的发育程度亟待提高。     

专利活动对企业绩效的影响——中国电子信息百强实证研究

综合专利活动影响企业绩效的相关理论和实证结果,提出了三条基本假设,并基于55家中国电子信息百强企业在1996年到2007年的面板数据,应用多项式分布滞后(PDL)模型对假设进行了验证。研究发现在我国电子信息产业,专利活动可以显著地提高企业绩效,而且专利申请对销售收入的贡献高于专利授权,专利授权对利润的贡献高于专利申请。     

Foreign patenting in the U.S. as a technology indicator: The case of Norway

Foreign patenting in the U.S. has been considered to be a useful technology indicator in comparisons between countries. In order to shed light on this topic, this paper will try to explain foreign patenting in the U.S. by way of data for one country - Norway.A crucial question is what role is played by exports in explaining the foreign patent activity. Is the U.S. patenting just an indicator of the export performance, or is it the other way around; that technology - measured by foreign patent activity - is an important trade explanatory variable.The first part of this paper deals with the relationship between Norwegian U.S. patenting and export to the U.S. by way of time-series analysis on data from 1883 to 1980. Then some more detailed analysis are done on industry-level data from 1920 and from 1960–1980. An hypothesis is further tested for the possible relationship between foreign U.S. patenting and the international business-cycles. Finally a detailed but tentative analysis is done on firm-level data for the years 1969–1980.The results lend partial support to the assumption that foreign U.S. patent activity reflects innovative activity in the country where the patents originated. A major advantage in using foreign patenting in the U.S. as a technology indicator, is that this type of data in general seems to be of a higher quality than domestic patent data.     

Technological development and political stability: Patenting in Latin America and the Caribbean

We examine the effect of national political institutions on patent application rates. The expected future value of a patent, like any other form of property, depends at least partially on certainty about the future. In circumstances where policy stability is greatest, and hence political uncertainty least, one should expect more aggressive pursuit of intellectual property rights. We test these ideas using a 27 year panel of Latin American and Caribbean nations, estimating US patent applications and domestic patent applications by local inventors for each observation, and holding other economic and technological inputs to innovation constant. Our principal finding is that political stability matters to patenting. For US patent applications institutional system tenure, regardless of system type, increases patent applications. For domestic patent applications, institutional stability has either a weakly negative or insignificant effect, a result we attribute to generally escalating local patenting standards over time. The type of government influences both US and domestic patent applications rates, with a veto-players institutional coding better predicting marginal patenting rates than regime type.     

Rates of invention: international patent comparisons

The increased patenting activity of foreign nationals in the United States has been a source of recent concern, and the fear has been expressed that the US is becoming relatively less technologically inventive. This paper investigates some possible causes of the increased foreign patenting activity and also briefly examines the determinants of patent filings by a country's own residents. The countries covered include: Canada, France, West Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.Based on data on patent applications filed and some preliminary regression analysis, the paper finds that the rising foreign patenting activity in the US probably does not reflect increased foreign inventiveness vis-à-vis the US. However, foreign innovativeness may be increasing relative to the US. Over the period 1963 – 1974, the domestic patent base, measured by the number of patent applications filed by nationals in their home countries, has shown little change in any country except for Japan. Rather, multiple patent applications and a greater propensity to patent abroad, induced by the possibilities of exporting, appear to be the sources of the increase in foreign patent applications in the US and also in Japan.     

Commercializing the laboratory: Faculty patenting and the open science environment

This paper investigates the relationship between patenting and publication of research results by university faculty members. Our study adds to the limited evidence on this topic with an empirical investigation based on a panel data set for a broad sample of university researchers. Results suggest that publication and patenting are complementary, not substitute, activities for faculty members. This is not consistent with recent concerns regarding deleterious effects of patenting on the research output of faculty members. Average citations to publications, however, appear to decline for repeat patenters, suggesting either a decrease in quality or restrictions on use associated in patent protection.     

Institutional changes and the commercialization of academic knowledge: A study of Italian universities’ patenting activities between 1965 and 2002

This paper focuses on Italian universities’ patenting activities between 1965 and 2002 and on the way they were affected by internal IPR regulations, set as part of broader responses to the increased level of autonomy granted to universities during the 1990s. Our analyses are based on a unique dataset including detailed information on all patents filed by Italian universities and university-level characteristics. Results show that: (1) in the last 10 years, the number of Italian university patents rose substantially; (2) patenting activities almost tripled in universities with an internal IPR regulation, after controlling for several universities’ characteristics, previous patenting activity and time trends; (3) each time a university creates its own patent regulation, there is a 9% increase in the likelihood that universities without any internal patent regulation will adopt one. Implications for university technology transfer policies are discussed.     

Behind the recent surge of Chinese patenting: An institutional view

This paper examines a number of forces that have possibly contributed to the explosive growth of Chinese patenting over the past decade. After a review of previous hypotheses and conventional wisdom, this study proposes an additional explanation and argues that patent subsidy programs implemented by each provincial region have played an important role in the growth of Chinese patenting. This institutional change, taking place at the province-level, has induced an increase in patent propensity among not only firms, universities, and research institutes, but also individuals. Empirical evidence based on publicly available data provides solid support for this argument. It was also found that a larger fraction of applications are granted patent rights since the implementation of such programs, suggesting that reduction in patent application quality may not be a serious concern, unless the criteria used for patent examination have been lowered.     

Spatial differences in the quality of university patenting: Do regions matter?

This paper uses patent citation data to analyze the quality of university technology across European regions. The empirical analysis draws on a panel dataset of 4580 European university-owned patents classified by 202 European regions over the period 1998-2004. The methodology involves a multilevel framework to identify the effects of factors at three hierarchical levels (individual, university, and regional) on the quality of university patenting. The results suggest that regional factors, such as the level of development, industrial potential, and regional higher education R&D expenditure, do not play any significant role in determining the quality of European university patents. We instead find that the factors affecting patent quality stem from their specific characteristics. We also find that university size does not explain the quality of patents. However, there is significant unobserved heterogeneity at the university level in all models, suggesting that differences in other university characteristics explain a substantial part of the variance in patent quality.     

Exploring the cross-country gap in patenting: A Stochastic Frontier Approach

This paper benchmarks the patent activities of a sample of OECD countries against the world frontier and explores the sources of the cross-country differences in patenting (regarded as a proxy for innovation). A patent production frontier is estimated for a panel of 21 OECD countries over the 1990-2002 period using Stochastic Frontier Analysis. Patenting performance for each country is decomposed into basic patenting capacity and patenting efficiency. The gap between Europe and the world leaders in terms of basic patenting capacity remains substantial with little sign of convergence over the sample period. In terms of patenting efficiency, Japan, Germany and Italy have improved their relative position in recent years. The gap in patenting performance between the UK and the world frontier is due to relative underperformance in both patenting capacity and efficiency in patent production. Institutional factors are found to be significantly associated with the patenting efficiency of an economy.     

Motives to patent: Empirical evidence from Germany

Against the background of the patent upsurge, we first analyse the role of patenting and alternative instruments to protect intellectual property, based on a sample of German companies active in patenting. In a second step, we investigate the motives to patent, considering sector and company size effects. We find that company size matters, both for the importance of instruments and the motives to patent. Especially important are the new strategic motives to patent, like using patents to improve a company's own position in negotiations with partners, licensees and the financial sector, or to use patents as incentives for R&D personnel or performance indicators—these correlate positively with company size. We derive some possible challenges for future patent policies from these insights.     

保护性专利审查机制对企业专利战略效应研究

 为了保证国内技术市场不被国外企业垄断,目前中国实施的是保护性的专利审查机制,其更有利于国内企业更早地获取专利权,国外企业想要获取专利权则往往需要等待较长时间。但从企业专利战略视角考虑,保护性的专利审查机制并不完全有利于国内企业。出于专利未来收益的不确定性及专利竞争战略考虑,国外企业往往不急于较早获取专利权,而保护性专利审查机制又进一步延迟了国外企业获取专利权的时间,这无疑更有利于国外企业专利战略的展开。尽管保护性专利审查机制更有利于国内大型企业建立技术垄断优势,但在市场潜力较大的技术领域反而可能更有利于国外企业,因此,其保护的效果可能并不理想。     

Patent validation at the country level—The role of fees and translation costs

One feature of the European patent system that is heavily criticized nowadays is related to its fragmentation and the induced cost burden for applicants. Once a patent is granted by the EPO, the assignee must validate (and often translate) it and pay the renewal fees to keep it in force in each country in which protection is sought. The objective of this paper is to assess to what extent validation and renewal fees as well as translation costs affect the validation behavior of applicants. We rely on a gravity model that aims at explaining patent flows between inventor and target countries within the European patent system. The results show that the size of countries, their wealth and the distance between their capital cities are significant determinants of patent flows. Validation fees and renewal fees further affect the validation behavior of applicants. Translation costs seem to have an impact as well. The implementation of cost-reducing policy interventions like the London Protocol will, therefore, induce a significant increase in the number of patents validated in each European country.     

专利行政执法对专利申请量的影响研究——基于R&D投入与FDI流入的中介作用

本文采集中国省级面板数据，以R&D投入、FDI流入及其交互作用为中介变量探索专利行政执法与专利申请量的关系，研究结果表明：（1）R&D投入、FDI流入在专利行政执法正向影响专利申请量中具有中介作用（2）专利行政执法通过FDI流入正向影响专利申请量效应小于专利行政执法通过R&D投入正向影响专利申请量；（3）R&D投入与FDI流入的交互作用在专利行政执法负向影响专利申请量中具有中介作用。以上结果不仅完善现有专利行政执法研究，还佐证和丰富现有知识产权保护相关理论文献，从而为国家更好地制定专利行政执法政策以推动我国创新型国家创建提供理论依据。     

Measuring patent assessment quality—Analyzing the degree and kind of (in)consistency in patent offices’ decision making

We argue that consistent decision making in judging a patent's validity and basing this on its underlying technological quality are important elements of patent office service (“assessment”) quality. To understand which level of assessment quality patent offices (can) provide, particularly in new technological areas, we study the concordance of the European Patent Office's (EPO) granting and opposition decisions for individual patents. Using the biotechnology industry in the 1980s (an emerging patenting area then) as an example, we find no empirical evidence that the EPO provided maximal or optimal assessment quality as far as can be told from bibliographic indicators. We discuss research limitations and consequences of this first empirical analysis, and suggest ideas for refinements in future work.     

Patent data as a guide to industrial activity

In this paper the patenting activity of the international pharmaceutical industry in London between 1900 and 1966 is analysed. Although patent data as a measure of industrial activity is not without defects it can be used both as an adjunct to and as a surrogate for more conventional yardsticks such as concentration ratios, sales statistics and so on. The results indicate that patenting activity can be used as both an absolute and relative indicator of an industry's pace of technological change. They help pinpoint the international distribution of pharmaceutical research and development. If analysed by product or process they can aid in the understanding of why an industry's competitive behaviour is or is not primarily one of price rivalry. Finally, they illustrate the continuing role of the individual inventor.     

Inventing by combining pre-existing technologies: Patent evidence on learning and fishing out

I develop a model of innovation where new technologies are combinations of pre-existing technological components. The model captures two opposing forces. The best ideas are used up (knowledge is exhaustible). However, as firms learn which technologies can be combined, new ideas become feasible (knowledge accumulates). I test the model with more than 80 years of US patent data. Technological components are proxied by 13,517 patent office technology classifications. These are reused and recycled in 10,000 distinct three-component sets. Consistent with a learning/fishing-out dynamic, I show patenting in one set of components is correlated with a subsequent increase in similar patents (sharing two of three components), but a subsequent decrease in identical patents (sharing all three components). I use patent renewal data to show my results are not driven by changes in demand for various technology bundles. My results suggest the positive impact of learning on subsequent patenting is larger than the negative impact of fishing out.     

Does it matter where patent citations come from? Inventor vs. examiner citations in European patents

This paper addresses the question of whether patent citations are useful indicators of technology flows. We exploit the distinction between citations added by inventors and patent examiners. We use information from the search reports of European Patent Office patent examiners to construct our dataset of patenting activity in Europe and the US, and apply various econometric models to investigate what determines the probability that a citation is added by the inventor rather than the examiner. Contrary to previous work which uses US Patent and Trademark Office data, we find that geographical distance is a factor that strongly diminishes the probability of knowledge flows. We find other significant effects of such factors as cognitive distance, time and strategic factors on citing behaviour.     

Are patents signals for the IPO market? An EU–US comparison for the software industry

This study investigates empirically whether patents can be signals to financial markets, thus reducing problems of asymmetric information. In particular we study how patenting behaviour impacts on the way investors perceive software firms’ growth potential through an increase in the amount invested at the initial public offering (IPO) of firms in the US and Europe. This study performs regressions on the relationship of patent applications before IPO and the amount of money collected at the IPO, while controlling other factors that may influence IPO performance. We also attempt to account for a potential source of endogeneity problems that can arise for self-selection bias and simultaneity between the number of patent applications prior to going public and the amount of money collected at IPO. We find significant and robust positive correlations between patent applications and IPO performance. The signalling power of patenting is significantly different for US and European companies, and is related to the difficulty in obtaining a signal and its scarcity. An additional patent application prior to IPO increases IPO proceeds by about 0.507% and 1.13% for US and European companies, respectively. Results suggest that a less ‘applicant friendly’ patenting system increases the credibility of patents as signals and their value for IPO investors.