Inventive Productivity and Patent Quality: Evidence from Italian Inventors

Schettino, Francesco and Sterlacchini, Alessandro and Venturini, Francesco (2008): Inventive Productivity and Patent Quality: Evidence from Italian Inventors.

Abstract

By considering a regional sample of Italian inventors, this paper explores the factors behind the different individual performances in terms of number and quality of patents. Our reference population is composed of 570 inventors residing in the Marche region who, over the period 1991-2005, have contributed to 743 patent applications filed at the European Patent Office. Looking at the number of patents per inventor, a Lotka’s distribution emerges suggesting that also for geographical areas inventive activities are highly concentrated in a few key inventors. To examine whether both the inventive productivity and quality are affected by individual and firm characteristics, we use the outcomes of a survey on 106 inventors. We find that the patent productivity is not influenced by individual characteristics but it is higher for the inventors working in teams and employed in large firms with greater patent portfolios. With respect to patent value we employ a composite index in which forward citations, claims and patent families are taken into account. Measured in this way, patent quality is significantly associated, along with the presence of an inventive team, with a set of individual features such as the inventors’ experience and level of education. This suggests that inventions coming from individuals working in small firms or independently can be as valuable as those generated by inventors occupied in larger companies.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Inventors; Inventive productivity; Patent quality
• Subjects: O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Innovation ; Research and Development ; Technological Change ; Intellectual Property Rights > O34 - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Innovation ; Research and Development ; Technological Change ; Intellectual Property Rights > O31 - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

References

Alcacér, J. and M. Gittelman (2005) Patent Citations as a Measure of Knowledge Flows: The Influence of Examiner Citations, Review of Economics and Statistics, 88(4): 774-779.

Archantopolous, E., D. Guellec, B. van Pottelsberge de la Potterie and N. van Zeebroeck (2007) When Small is Beautiful: Measuring the Evolution and Consequences of the Voluminosity of Patent Applications at the EPO, Information Economics and Policy, 19: 103-132.

Criscuolo, P. and B. Verspagen (2006) Does it matter where patent citations come from? Inventor versus examiners citations in European patents, revised versions (July 2006) of the ECIS Working Papers 05.06, Eindhoven Centre for Innovation Studies, Eindhoven University of Technology-

de Solla Price, D. (1976) A General Theory of Bibliometric and Other Cumulative Advantage Process, Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 27:292-306.

Ernst, H., C. Leptien and J. Vitt (2000) Inventors are not alike: the distribution of patenting output and industrial R&D personnel, IEEE Transaction on engineering management, 47:184-199.

European Patent Office (2007) Top applicants in 2006, www.epo.org/ about-us/ office/ statistics/ top-applicants-2006.html

Giuri, P. et al. (2007) Inventors and Invention Processes in Europe: Results from the PatVal-EU Survey, Research Policy, 36:1107-1127

Hall B., A. Jaffe and M. Trajtenberg (2001) The NBER Patent Citations Data File: Lessons, Insights and Methodological Tools, NBER Working Paper 8498.

Hall, B., G. Toma and S. Torrisi (2007) The Market Value of Patents and R&D: Evidence from European Firms, NBER Working Paper 13426.

Harhoff, D., F. Scherer and K. Vopel (2003) Citations, family size, opposition and the value of patent rights, Research Policy, 32:1343-1363.

Harhoff, D., F. Narin, F. Scherer and K. Vopel (1999) Citation Frequency and the Value of Patented Inventions, The Review of Economics and Statistics, 81: 511-515.

Lanjouw, J.O. and M. Schankerman (2004) Patent Quality and Research Productivity: Measuring Innovation with Multiple Indicators, Economic Journal, 114:441-465.

Lazaridis G. and B. Van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie (2007) The Rigour of EPO’s Patentability Criteria: An Insight into the “Induced Withdrawals”, World Patent Information, 29: 317-326.

Lerner, J. (1994) The Importance of Patent Scope: An Empirical Analysis, RAND Journal of Economics, 25: 319-333.

Lotka A. J. (1926) The Frequency Distribution of Scientific Productivity Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, 16:317-323.

Mariani, M. and M. Romanelli (2007) ‘Stacking’ and ‘Picking’ Inventions: The Patenting Behavior of European Inventors, Research Policy, 36:1128-1142.

Narin, F. and A. Breitzman (1995) Inventive Productivity, Research Policy, 24: 507-519

Putnam, J. (1996) The value of international patent rights, Ph.D. Thesis, Yale University, Yale.

Schankerman, M. and A. Pakes (1986) Estimates of the Value of Patent Rights in European Countries During the Post-1950 Period, Economic Journal, 96: 1052-1077.

Schettino, F. and Sterlacchini A. (2007) European Patenting and the Size of Inventors, Quaderno di Ricerca n. 308, Dipartimento di Economia, Universit Politecnica delle Marche.

Schneider, C. (2007) The Determinants of Patent Applications Outcomes – Does Experience Matter?, MPRA Paper No. 3359.

Trajtenberg, M. (2005) The mobility of inventors and the productivity of research, Presentation made at the NBER Summer Institute Conference on “Economics of Intellectual Property” , July 19, 2005; www.nber.org/confr/2005/si2005/prlprg.html.

Webb, C., H. Dernis, D. Harhoff and K. Hoisl (2005) Analysing European and International Patent Citations: A Set of EPO Patent Database Building Blocks, OCDE Science, Technology and Industry Working Paper 2005/9, OCED Publishing.