intellectual property
Useful Stats: Is the U.S. Becoming Less Innovative? Patents per Employee Drop
The number of U.S. patents per employee decreased in 43 states from 2003 to 2007, as patents per employee for the U.S. as a whole declined by 10.3 percent over the same five-year period. To track this metric, SSTI has prepared a table calculating the number of patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) per 100,000 employees for each state. The table also displays the relative ranking of each state from 2003 to 2007, as well as each state's five-year percent change.
Recent Research: Human Capital, Small Businesses Drive Local Patenting Activity
Over the past few decades, state and local policymakers have approached the task of increasing regional innovative activity from a number of directions. Leaders have deployed plans to increase the amount of available capital, to train entrepreneurs, to attract research-based companies and other strategies to create a thriving innovation economy. A key issue in this pursuit is how to keep the beneficial results of these efforts local.
Compromise Allows Patent Reform to Move to Senate Floor
Congress has been debating the need to revise U.S. patent law for years, and, while the debate certainly is not over, a significant hurdle was passed last week when the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 15-4 to move S.515, as amended, for full Senate consideration.
Gatekeepers in Regional Networks of Innovators
This paper looks at the characteristics of regional gatekeepers, which are individuals, firms, and organizations that bring new ideas from outside the region, and distribute knowledge within the region. The author finds size is not a predictor if an entity will be a gatekeeper, but the absorptive capacity is a predictor. The paper uses social network theory research to connect the data, data which is based on the applicants of filed patents.
When Do Scientists Become Entrepreneurs? The Social Structural Antecedents of Commercial Activity in the Academic Life Sciences
Stuart and Waverly Ding of Berkeleys Haas School of Business take a randomly selected sample of 5,100 life science Ph.D.s in academia, and examine the link between participation in for-profit entrepreneurial ventures and the presence of an academic social network that supports faculty entrepreneurism. They find that university scientists are more likely to found or join the board of a new firm if other faculty members have already done so, particularly if more prestigious colleagues in their department have created their own start-ups.
The Impact of Academic Patenting on the Rate, Quality and Direction of (Public) Research Output
In this January 2006 paper, Stuart, Ding, and Pierre Azoulay of Columbia Universitys Graduate School of Business examine the patents and research output of 3,862 academic life scientists to determine if the increasing focus on commercialization at American universities is affecting the quantity and quality of published research. They conclude that patent activity has a positive effect on the rate of article publication, but no observable effect on the quality of those articles.
Identification of University Inventors and University Patenting Patterns at Lund University: Conceptual- Methodological & Empirical Findings
This paper provides a systematic database on university patenting activities in Sweden. The rate of patenting activity showed a positive trend between the years 1990 and 2004.
University Patenting and Scientific Productivity: A Quantitative Study of Italian Academic Inventors
This paper explores the impact of patenting on university professors’ scientific productivity, as measured by publication and citation counts. It concludes that academic inventors (university professors who appear as designated inventors on at least one patent application) publish more and better quality papers than their colleagues with no patents, and increase their productivity after patenting.
Intellectual Property Rights and Economic Growth
The authors investigate the impact of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection on economic growth in a panel of 79 countries using threshold regression analysis. We show that whilst the effect of IPR protection on growth depends upon the level of development, it is positively and significantly related to growth for low- and high-income countries, but not for middle-income countries.
Reforming U.S. Patent Policy: Getting the Incentives Right
The United States has used bilateral trade agreements to push small developing countries to accept IPR obligations that go far beyond the global requirements set out by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in its Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Some of these obligations are inconsistent with development needs and cause resentment of overall U.S. trade policy without much promise of spurring more innovation. This report provides suggestions to alleviate these problems.