IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sls/resrep/1702.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are Trends in Patenting Reflective of Innovative Activity in Canada?

Author

Listed:
  • Jacob Greenspon & Erika Rodigues

Abstract

This report sheds light on trends in Canadian innovation as indicated through patenting. Central to these recent trends is an apparent paradox: the number of patents granted to Canadians, an output indicator of innovative activity, has increased substantially between 2000 and 2014 despite decreased business sector expenditures on research and development, a crucial input to innovation, in the same period. This report examines this issue an provides several potential explanations as to why this is the case, the strongest being that the divergence between trends in patenting and R&D expenditures is caused by greater efficiency of research processes and an increase in strategic filings of patents. Furthermore, this report documents recent trends in patenting activity in Canada from several sources and compares trends across different technologies. Patenting trends are also used to give a regional perspective on innovation by tracking the level of innovative activity occurring in provinces and census metropolitan areas.

Suggested Citation

  • Jacob Greenspon & Erika Rodigues, 2017. "Are Trends in Patenting Reflective of Innovative Activity in Canada?," CSLS Research Reports 2017-02, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    • Handle: RePEc:sls:resrep:1702
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.csls.ca/reports/csls2017-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Petra Moser, 2005. "How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1214-1236, September.
    2. Bronwyn H. Hall & Grid Thoma & Salvatore Torrisi, 2006. "The market value of patents and R&D: Evidence from European firms," KITeS Working Papers 186, KITeS, Centre for Knowledge, Internationalization and Technology Studies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy, revised Nov 2006.
    3. Nicolas van Zeebroeck & Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, 2011. "Filing strategies and patent value," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(6), pages 539-561, February.
    4. Kenneth Arrow, 1962. "Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention," NBER Chapters, in: The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors, pages 609-626, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Andrew Eckert & Corinne Langinier, 2014. "A Survey Of The Economics Of Patent Systems And Procedures," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 996-1015, December.
    6. Jaffe, Adam B, 1989. "Real Effects of Academic Research," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 957-970, December.
    7. Hui-Yun Sung & Chun-Chieh Wang & Dar-Zen Chen & Mu-Hsuan Huang, 2014. "A comparative study of patent counts by the inventor country and the assignee country," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 100(2), pages 577-593, August.
    8. Hall, Bronwyn H & Ziedonis, Rosemarie Ham, 2001. "The Patent Paradox Revisited: An Empirical Study of Patenting in the U.S. Semiconductor Industry, 1979-1995," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(1), pages 101-128, Spring.
    9. Alexander Murray, 2016. "Partial versus Total Factor Productivity Measures: An Assessment of their Strengths and Weaknesses," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 31, pages 113-126, Fall.
    10. Blind, Knut & Cremers, Katrin & Mueller, Elisabeth, 2009. "The influence of strategic patenting on companies' patent portfolios," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 428-436, March.
    11. Nagaoka, Sadao & Motohashi, Kazuyuki & Goto, Akira, 2010. "Patent Statistics as an Innovation Indicator," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1083-1127, Elsevier.
    12. Taylor, Mark Zachary, 2016. "The Politics of Innovation: Why Some Countries Are Better Than Others at Science and Technology," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190464134.
    13. Kortum, Samuel & Lerner, Josh, 1999. "What is behind the recent surge in patenting?1," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 1-22, January.
    14. Shih-tse Lo & Dhanoos Sutthiphisal, 2009. "Does it Matter Who Has the Right to Patent: First-to-invent or First-to-file? Lessons From Canada," NBER Working Papers 14926, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Prodan, I., 2005. "Influence of Research and Development Expenditures on Number of Patent Aplications: Selected Case Studies in OECD countries and Central Europe, 1981-2001," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 5(4).
    16. Ben Dachis & Robbie Brydon & Nicholas Chesterley, 2014. "Measuring Innovation in Canada: The Tale Told by Patent Applications," e-briefs 191, C.D. Howe Institute.
    17. Bronwyn H. Hall & Christian Helmers & Mark Rogers & Vania Sena, 2012. "The Choice between Formal and Informal Intellectual Property: A Literature Review," NBER Working Papers 17983, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrew Eckert & Corinne Langinier & Long Zhao, 2022. "Determinants of locational patenting behavior of Canadian firms," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(4), pages 268-291, May.
    2. Nancy Gallini, 2017. "Do patents work? Thickets, trolls and antibiotic resistance," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(4), pages 893-926, November.
    3. Daniel Schwanen, 2017. "Innovation Policy in Canada: A Holistic Approach," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 497, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gamba, Simona, 2017. "The Effect of Intellectual Property Rights on Domestic Innovation in the Pharmaceutical Sector," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 15-27.
    2. Andrew Eckert & Corinne Langinier, 2014. "A Survey Of The Economics Of Patent Systems And Procedures," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 996-1015, December.
    3. Gamarra, Yanis Luca & Friedl, Gunther, 2023. "Declared essential patents and average total R&D expenditures per patent family," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(7).
    4. Rockett, Katharine, 2010. "Property Rights and Invention," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 315-380, Elsevier.
    5. Munari, Federico & Toschi, Laura, 2014. "Running ahead in the nanotechnology gold rush. Strategic patenting in emerging technologies," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 194-207.
    6. Hu, Albert Guangzhou & Jefferson, Gary H., 2009. "A great wall of patents: What is behind China's recent patent explosion?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 57-68, September.
    7. Nancy Gallini, 2017. "Do patents work? Thickets, trolls and antibiotic resistance," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 50(4), pages 893-926, November.
    8. Cohen, Wesley M., 2010. "Fifty Years of Empirical Studies of Innovative Activity and Performance," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 129-213, Elsevier.
    9. Fontana, Roberto & Nuvolari, Alessandro & Shimizu, Hiroshi & Vezzulli, Andrea, 2013. "Reassessing patent propensity: Evidence from a dataset of R&D awards, 1977–2004," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(10), pages 1780-1792.
    10. Barge-Gil, Andrés & López, Alberto, 2014. "R&D determinants: Accounting for the differences between research and development," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(9), pages 1634-1648.
    11. Gans, Joshua S. & Murray, Fiona E. & Stern, Scott, 2017. "Contracting over the disclosure of scientific knowledge: Intellectual property and academic publication," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 820-835.
    12. Ljungqvist, Alexander & Farre-Mensa, Joan & Hegde, Deepak, 2016. "The Bright Side of Patents," CEPR Discussion Papers 11091, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Agarwal, Rajshree & Shah, Sonali K., 2014. "Knowledge sources of entrepreneurship: Firm formation by academic, user and employee innovators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(7), pages 1109-1133.
    14. Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, 2011. "The quality factor in patent systems," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 20(6), pages 1755-1793, December.
    15. Marc Baudry & Adrien Hervouet, 2017. "The private value of plant variety protection and the impact of exemption rules," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(3), pages 202-226, April.
    16. Masatoshi Kato & Koichiro Onishi & Yuji Honjo, 2022. "Does patenting always help new firm survival? Understanding heterogeneity among exit routes," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 449-475, August.
    17. Nicolas van Zeebroeck, 2011. "The puzzle of patent value indicators," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 33-62.
    18. Giovanni Dosi & Luigi Marengo & Corrado Pasquali, 2010. "How Much Should Society Fuel the Greed of Innovators? On the Relations between Appropriability, Opportunities and Rates of Innovation," Chapters, in: Riccardo Viale & Henry Etzkowitz (ed.), The Capitalization of Knowledge, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Blind, Knut & Cremers, Katrin & Mueller, Elisabeth, 2009. "The influence of strategic patenting on companies' patent portfolios," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 428-436, March.
    20. Gaetan de Rassenfosse & Kyle Higham, 2019. "Decentralising the Patent System," Working Papers 6, Chair of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Patenting; Research and Development; Innovation; Trends; Technology; Measurement; Canada;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
    • Q55 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Technological Innovation
    • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sls:resrep:1702. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CSLS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cslssca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.