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"Stacking" or "Picking" Patents? The Inventors' Choice Between Quantity and Quality

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Author Info
Myriam Mariani
Marzia Romanelli

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Abstract

This paper studies the determinants of the quantity and quality of inventors’ patents. It uses a sample of 793 inventors drawn from the PatVal-EU dataset and the information on EPO patents that they contributed to inventing during the period 1988-1998. It explores three aspects of the inventors’ productivity: 1) the number of EPO patents that they produce; 2) their average quality; 3) the quality of the most valuable patents. By jointly estimating the three equations we find that the inventors’ level of education, employment in a large firm and involvement in large-scale research projects positively affect quantity. Yet, apart from the size of the research project, none of these factors directly influences the expected quality of the innovations. They do, however, indirectly, as we find that the number of innovations explains the probability of producing a technological hit (the maximum value). Also, there are no decreasing returns in the innovation process at an individual level, as the number of innovations that an inventor produces is not correlated with their average quality.

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Paper provided by Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy in its series LEM Papers Series with number 2006/06.

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Date of creation: 14 Feb 2006
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Handle: RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2006/06

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Related research
Keywords: Productivity; Industrial inventors; Patent quality;

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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: 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.:
  1. Griliches, Zvi, 1990. "Patent Statistics as Economic Indicators: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 28(4), pages 1661-1707, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Benjamin F. Jones, 2005. "Age and Great Invention," NBER Working Papers 11359, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Todd L. Idson & Walter Y. Oi, 1999. "Workers Are More Productive in Large Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 104-108, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Arrow, Kenneth J., 1973. "Higher education as a filter," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 193-216, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Hall, B. & Jaffe, A. & Trajtenberg, M., 2001. "The NBER Patent Citations Data File: Lessons, Insights and Methodological Tools," Papers 2001-29, Tel Aviv.
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  6. Levin, Sharon G & Stephan, Paula E, 1991. "Research Productivity over the Life Cycle: Evidence for Academic Scientists," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 114-32, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Sharon M. Oster & Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1998. "Aging And Productivity Among Economists," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 154-156, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Manuel Trajtenberg, 1990. "A Penny for Your Quotes: Patent Citations and the Value of Innovations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 172-187, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Harhoff, Dietmar & Reitzig, Markus, 2002. "Determinants of Opposition Against EPO Patent Grants - The Case of Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals," CEPR Discussion Papers 3645, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Bronwyn H. Hall & Adam Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2005. "Market Value and Patent Citations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(1), pages 16-38, Spring.
  11. Narin, Francis & Breitzman, Anthony, 1995. "Inventive productivity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 507-519, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. repec:fth:harver:1473 is not listed on IDEAS
  13. Ernst, Holger, 1998. "Industrial research as a source of important patents," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-15, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Zucker, Lynne G & Darby, Michael R & Armstrong, Jeff, 1998. "Geographically Localized Knowledge: Spillovers or Markets?," Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 36(1), pages 65-86, January.
  15. Dietmar Harhoff & Francis Narin & Frederic M. Scherer & Katrin Vopel, 1997. "Citation Frequency and the Value of Patented Innovation," CIG Working Papers FS IV 97-26, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG). [Downloadable!]
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  16. Jean O. Lanjouw & Mark Schankerman, 2004. "Patent Quality and Research Productivity: Measuring Innovation with Multiple Indicators," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(495), pages 441-465, 04. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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.)

  1. Ejermo, Olof & Kander, Astrid, 2007. "Swedish business research productivity – improvements against international trends," CIRCLE Electronic Working Paper Series 2007-07, CIRCLE (Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy), Lund University. [Downloadable!]
  2. de Rassenfosse, Gaétan & van Pottelsberghe, Bruno, 2008. "A Policy Insight into the R&D-Patent Relationship," CEPR Discussion Papers 6716, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Ejermo, Olof, 2007. "Regional innovation measured by patent data – does quality matter?," CIRCLE Electronic Working Paper Series 2007-08, CIRCLE (Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy), Lund University. [Downloadable!]
  4. Ejermo, Olof, 2006. "Are quality-adjusted patents more geographically clustered than raw patent counts? Evidence using Swedish data," CIRCLE Electronic Working Paper Series 2006-14, CIRCLE (Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy), Lund University. [Downloadable!]
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