This paper analyses whether strategic motives for patenting influence the characteristics of companies' patent portfolios. We use the number of citations and oppositions to represent these characteristics. The analysis is based on survey data from German companies, which are combined with EPO data covering applications from 1991 to 2000. We find clear evidence that the companies' patenting strategies are related to the characteristics of their patent portfolios. First, companies using patents in the traditional way to protect their technological knowledge base receive a higher number of forward citations for their patents. Second, the motive of offensive - but not of defensive - blocking is related to a higher incidence of oppositions, whereas companies using patents as bartering chips in collaborations receive fewer citations and fewer oppositions to their patents.
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Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Research Policy.
Volume (Year): 38 (2009) Issue (Month): 2 (March) Pages: 428-436 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Kartin Hussinger, 2005.
"Is Silence Golden? Patents versus Secrecy at the Firm Level,"
Discussion Papers
37, SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
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Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Nicolas van Zeebroeck, 2007.
"The puzzle of patent value indicators,"
Working Papers CEB
07-023.RS, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, Centre Emile Bernheim (CEB).
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