Federal funding and the rate and direction of inventive activity

Leveraging a new measure of patent citation trees (Corredoira and Banerjee, 2015), we demonstrate that research funded by the federal government is associated with more active and diverse technological trajectories. Our findings tie government funding to breakthrough inventions. The differences are especially evident at the upper percentiles of the distribution of long term patent influence and stem primarily from research conducted outside the federal government and sponsored by the DOD, HHS and NSF. Government funded patents are inputs into a broader range of technologies. Additional analyses indicate that federal programs invest in some technological areas that private corporations eschew, and federally funded university patents are in different technological classes than non-federally funded university patents. In this sense, the government may play an irreplaceable role in the rate and direction of inventive activity.“Generally speaking, the scientific agencies of Government are not so concerned with immediate practical objectives as are the laboratories of industry nor, on the other hand, are they as free to explore any natural phenomena without regard to possible economic applications as are the educational and private research institutions.” - Vannevar Bush, Science the Endless Frontier”, 1945.     

Patenting and inventive activity on synthetic fibre intermediates

The demand-pull theory of invention and innovation has drawn much of its support from the work of Jacob Schmookler on patent time series. In this work, Schmookler found no evidence that scientific discoveries or major inventions had provided the stimulus for important inventions. However, it is argued here that his method was not well designed to detect such effects.Any effect of a particular scientific or technological development is likely to occur in a rather narrow area of technology, so that detection of science-push and technology-push will be favoured by the examination of narrow areas of inventive activity. Manufacturing processes for groups of chemical products subject to similar demand-side factors provide convenient such areas.In this study time series of patents on processes for eight intermediates for synthetic fibres have been examined. They are not consistent with a simple demand-pull theory, but rather with the view that inventive activity is affected both by demand and by technological opportunity. Two of the intermediates have been examined in detail, and evidence has been presented that in one case a major invention arose from science-push and in the other one arose from technology-push.     

山中伸弥的“论文-专利”二元行为模式分析

一般认为,科学家尤其是诺贝尔奖科学家科学研究工作成果的主要发表形式是科学论文。但近年来的趋势表明,诺贝尔奖科学家也在大量地申请专利,即便是那些看起来从事基础科学研究的学者,也表现出强烈的专利意识。日本科学家、2012年诺贝尔生理或医学奖得主山中伸弥是其中典型的代表。山中伸弥"论文—专利"行为模式,存在着明显的逻辑合理性和行动连续性,值得我国科学家学习。作为驱动力量的日本科技政策,也值得我国科技政策制定者借鉴参考。     

Measuring follow-on innovation

How patents affect follow-on innovation is a key question for the patent system. We disaggregate follow-on innovation into activities that infringe patents and others that do not infringe but can be indirectly affected by patents. Replicating an important study using our disaggregated measure, we find that 87 percent of follow-on scientific publications describing patented genes do not constitute patent infringement. Supplementing our empirical strategy with data on patent expiration dates, we find that gene patents which are not close to expiration cause an increase in noninfringing follow-on research, but the effect disappears for patents close to expiration. Our nuanced measure helps better identify the mechanisms of patents’ effect, reconcile disparate results in the literature, and evaluate policy reform.     

基于面板数据的专利与科技进步关联性研究/FONT

    摘要：专利制度已成为建设创新型国家的重要制度保证,其推动科技进步的作用在实践中已得到充分体现,但二者之间相互依存关系的密切程度还没有定量研究。本文选择专利授权率、发明专利授权量、专利有效累计量等10个专利表征指标,基于面板数据,采用灰色关联分析法定量研究了这些指标与科技进步的关联性。结果表明专利与科技进步有着很大的关联性,并且专利制度的不同运用方式对科技进步的贡献度明显不同,表现为不同的专利指标和科技进步的关联性不一样,其中专利授权率与科技进步关联度最大,而专利授权量、PCT申请量与科技进步的关联度相对较小。       

专利资源碎片化、反公地悲剧与政府治理

在专利资源碎片化的背景下，专利市场治理在专利成果转化、产业创新发展中的作用日益凸显。以美国航空产业专利市场治理案例为对象，通过博弈分析和案例论证，研究专利资源碎片化情境下的专利市场反公地悲剧及其政府治理机制。研究发现：专利资源碎片化导致专利市场交易成本负担过高，市场机制失效，出现专利市场反公地悲剧；政府通过强制交叉许可、价格管制等手段降低谈判成本、控制许可成本，促成专利池组建，有效治理专利市场失灵，避免反公地悲剧。     

湖南高校科技成果转化实证研究

高校科技成果是地方和国家科技进步、经济发展的重要推动力,高校科技成果的转化基础和转化水平可以较好地反应高校科技成果的转化实力.通过湖南高校专利信息的客观分析结果揭示的专利质量了解湖南高校的科技成果转化基础,通过产学研合作情况、有效专利实施率等了解其转化水平.发现湖南高校96％的专利权利要求数量不到10项、有效专利的专利...     

Sailing in all winds: Technological search over the business cycle

Business cycles modify firms’ incentives to innovate and the direction of innovation. By introducing a new measure of patent unconventionality this paper explores the impact of the business cycle on firms’ technological search strategies. We find that during upturns firms generate inventions characterized by a higher level of technological unconventionality. We also find that financially resilient and diversified firms produce more unconventional patents. While patent unconventionality is associated with technological impact and market value, firms extract more value by investing in unconventional inventions in downturns.     

江苏省专利与科技进步关联性实证研究

论述江苏省专利的总体情况和江苏省科技进步总体状况,并将两者进行对比,选取专利申请量、专利授权量、发明专利申请量和发明专利授权量四个指标,利用SPSS软件计算出其与科技进步水平指数的相关系数,并建立回归模型,以便科学地认识和了解专利作用科技进步的具体途径,科学控制相关因素,实现专利促使科技进步的作用最大化。     

Technological competition and patent strategy: Protecting innovation,preempting rivals and defending the freedom to operate

Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, we examine the effect of technological competition over a patent on the firm's choice of patenting strategy. We claim that technological competition makes the traditional strategy of protecting focal innovations from imitation less likely and increases the likelihood of a play strategy — i.e. using patents to avoid the risk of hold-up by other patent owners, or as a bargaining chip in litigation and cross-licensing. However, we claim also that technological competition over a target close to the firm's core technology should lead to use of a fence strategy i.e. to blocking the commercial endeavors of rivals and preempting substitute inventions. We find support for our hypotheses using data from a large-scale survey of European patent applications.     

基于熵权法的高校专利分级评价研究

专利评价体系是对专利进行分级管理、推进专利转化、提升高科技创新的重要手段。本文基于熵权理论，从专利技术性、法律性和申请人主体三个维度筛选评价指标，选取了适用于中国高校专利状况的15项专利质量评价指标进行研究，提出熵权法权重计算模型，并对17所高校在2011、2015、2019年提交的专利申请进行了实证研究。文章分析了专利质量指标权重演化，并基于时间轴和院校间横向得分对比，得出高校整体专利质量的提升及目标高校专利呈现分化等结论。构建的评价体系可为高校专利分级管理、知识产权运营等工作提供数据支持和思路参考。     

碳交易机制与企业绿色创新：基于三重差分模型

    低碳经济与绿色发展密切相关,目前关于碳交易机制对企业绿色创新影响的分析缺乏微观企业层面的经验证据。本文基于2009—2016年间中国沪深两市A股上市公司的专利数据,以2013年末在7个省市开展的碳排放权交易试点作为准自然实验,采用三重差分的估计方法,通过对比碳交易试点政策实施前后、试点省市相对于非试点省市、高污染行业相对于低污染行业的企业绿色专利申请占比的变化情况,探究碳交易机制政策对企业绿色创新活动的影响,并进行了一系列异质性讨论和稳健性检验。实证结果表明：（1）相对于非试点省市和试点省市的低污染行业,碳交易试点政策能够提高试点省市高污染行业的企业的绿色专利申请比例。（2）相比于发明类绿色专利,该政策对绿色专利中的非发明类专利的促进作用更强。（3）相对于国有企业,该政策对试点省市上市公司中非国有企业的绿色创新的激励作用更加显著。此外,本文发现：碳排放权交易试点政策能够增加高污染行业企业的科研人才引进和提高科技研发支出、提高企业资产净利润率,进而直接或间接地促进了企业绿色创新发展。本文的研究结论能够为中国实施全国碳排放权交易政策提供一定经验支持;为如何实现提质增效、更好促进企业节能降耗和绿色发展提供政策建议。     

The role of corporate scientists in innovation

We conducted empirical analysis of the role of corporate scientists in Japanese pharmaceutical companies using data on published papers and patent applications. We found that scientists with the highest publication performance scores did not apply for a considerably greater number of patents than other researchers in their companies. Instead, we found that these “core scientists” had a positive effect on the number of patent applications filed by their co-authors. Our findings suggest that core scientists play an important role as central conduits for the in-flow of knowledge from outside their companies, thereby stimulating innovation.     

基于专利相似度的突破性技术发明识别研究——以纳米技术为例

随着我国发明专利申请数量的迅猛增加,如何通过事前和事后指标测度并识别技术和经济价值高的突破性技术发明就成为学术界面临的焦点问题。针对我国专利普遍缺乏引文信息的现状,本文利用专利的国际专利分类（IPC）信息构建两两专利相似度指标,并引入时间维度对过去、当前以及未来三个时间段的专利相似度比较,测度专利的新颖性、独特性和影响力,从而构建突破性技术发明的综合识别方案。然后,以纳米技术为例,利用美国专利商标局（USPTO）在1975-2015年的授权发明专利数据进行实证检验。结果表明：（1）基于专利IPC四位和六位分类的相似度指标分别可以识别出6.23%和5.06%的纳米技术专利为突破性技术发明;（2）基于专利相似度识别的突破性技术发明与基于专利被引数识别的突破性技术发明具有显著的正相关关系,但是,两类识别方法得到的结果中仅有不足总样本的0.5%是相同的,表明以往单纯依赖专利被引数据识别突破性技术发明可能存在一定偏差;（3）对突破性技术发明来源特征的实证检验表明,基于专利相似度和基于专利被引数的突破性技术发明的发明人和组织来源特征基本一致,而发明层面的知识来源特征呈现不一致的结果,进一步反映出两类识别方案的差异性。本文基于专利相似度构建的突破性技术发明识别方案既为企业在实践中挖掘和利用高价值的发明专利提供参考,也对未来突破性技术发明相关研究达成一致结论具有重要意义。     

Innovation and government intervention: A comparison of Singapore and Hong Kong

Government is one of the determinants for innovation capacity although its role and degree of involvement in innovation is debatable. Government intervention can be vital in supporting R&D and innovation as market alone cannot provide adequate incentives for knowledge production. Degrees of government intervention, however, vary in different economies and range from directive intervention by actively advising industrial policy and investing in selected areas, to facilitative intervention by creating positive environment and providing public goods for industry. This study uses Singapore and Hong Kong as two cases to explore the influence of government intervention on innovation performance. Singapore is known for strong government intervention while Hong Kong is famous for its positive non-intervention policy that minimizes the power of government in influencing the market. The comparison shows that innovation activities in Singapore are largely policy driven and dominated by big players, while in Hong Kong industry innovation is less active but the local industry has a dynamic innovation base contributed by small firms. Using a difference-in-differences analysis of USPTO patents filed by Singapore and Hong Kong, we find evidence for the effectiveness of government intervention on enhancing the technological significance and scope of innovation. The findings could shed light on the implication of government involvement in innovation.     

University licensing and the flow of scientific knowledge

As university involvement in technology transfer and entrepreneurship has increased, concerns over the patenting and licensing of scientific discoveries have grown. This paper examines the effect that the licensing of academic patents has on journal citations to academic publications covering the same scientific research. We analyze data on invention disclosures, patents, and licenses from the University of California, a leading U.S. academic patenter and licensor, between 1997 and 2007. We also develop a novel “inventor-based” maximum-likelihood matching technique to automate and generalize Murray's (2002) “patent-paper pairs” methodology. We use this methodology to identify the scientific publications associated with University of California patents and licenses.Based on a “difference-in-differences” analysis, we find that within our sample of patented academic discoveries, citations to licensed patent-linked publications are higher in the three years after the license, although this difference is not statistically significant. We then disaggregate our sample into (a) patented discoveries that are likely to be used as “research tools” by other researchers (based on the presence of material transfer agreements (MTAs) that cover them) and (b) patented discoveries not covered by MTAs. Citations to publications linked to licensed patents in the latter subset (not covered by MTAs) are higher for publications linked to licensed patents, and this difference is statistically significant. In contrast, licensing of patented discoveries that are also research tools is associated with a reduction in citations to papers linked to these research advances, raising the possibility that licensing may restrict the flow of inputs to “follow-on” scientific research.     

Patent systems for encouraging innovation: Lessons from economic analysis

Economic theory views patents as policy instruments aimed at fostering innovation and diffusion. Three major implications are drawn regarding current policy debates. First, patents may not be the most effective means of protection for inventors to recover R&D investments when imitation is costly and first mover advantages are important. Second, patentability requirements, such as novelty or non-obviousness, should be sufficiently stringent to avoid the grant of patents for inventions with low social value that increase the social cost of the patent system. Third, the trade-off between the patent policy instruments of length and breadth could be used to provide sufficient incentives to develop inventions with high social value. Beyond these three implications, economic theory also pleads for a mechanism design approach: an optimal patent system could be based on a menu of different degrees of patent protection where stronger protection would involve higher fees, allowing self-selection by inventors.     

从学术型发明人视角看高科技领域科学与技术研究前沿主题的关系 ——以石墨烯领域为例

学术型发明人是科学向技术转移的重要桥梁和媒介.本文从识别高影响力的学术型发明人入手,通过对高影响力学术发明人的论文和专利的持续研究主题的研究,来识别对比高科技领域科学与技术前沿主题的差别与联系,并分析识别学术型发明人的研究成果中的更具市场潜力的研究主题.研究发现,不同国家的学术型发明人的研究侧重点不同,有的偏重科学研究...     

The dark side of signals: Patents protecting radical inventions and venture capital investments

Patents are an important signal of the unobserved quality of young, innovative firms. We study patents that protect radical inventions associated with high earnings potential but also a high risk of failure. These previously disregarded signals convey positive and negative information simultaneously, i.e., strong signals that have a dark side. We argue that whether firms that send such signals are attractive investment targets for venture capital (VC) investors depends on the characteristics of the investors. Reputable VC investors are attracted to the strong quality signals of patents protecting radical inventions and are better able than other VC investors to deal with the dark side of these signals through syndication. These effects are stronger in the first financing round than in follow-on rounds, as the (positive and negative) informational value of patents protecting radical inventions diminishes over time as information asymmetries between young firms and prospective VC investors are reduced. We test these predictions using a sample of 759 young life science firms and 555 VC investors. Econometric estimates from a matching model support our predictions.     

Patenting the bomb: nuclear weapons, intellectual property, and technological control

During the course of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government secretly attempted to acquire a monopoly on the patent rights for inventions used in the production of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. The use of patents as a system of control, while common for more mundane technologies, would seem at first glance to conflict with the regimes of secrecy that have traditionally been associated with nuclear weapons. In explaining the origins and operations of the Manhattan Project patent system, though, this essay argues that the utilization of patents was an ad hoc attempt at legal control of the atomic bomb by Manhattan Project administrators, focused on the monopolistic aspects of the patent system and preexisting patent secrecy legislation. From the present perspective, using patents as a method of control for such weapons seems inadequate, if not unnecessary; but at the time, when the bomb was a new and essentially unregulated technology, patents played an important role in the thinking of project administrators concerned with meaningful postwar control of the bomb.