Applicant and Examiner Citations in US Patents: An Overview and Analysis

Researchers studying innovation increasingly use indicators based on patent citations. However, it is well known that not all citations originate from applicants--patent examiners contribute to citations listed in issued patents--and that this could complicate interpretation of findings in this literature. In 2001 the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) began reporting examiner and applicant citations separately. In this paper, we analyze the prior art citations of all patents granted by the USPTO in 2001-2003. We show that examiner citations account for 63 per cent of all citations on the average patent, and that 40 per cent of patents have all citations added by examiners. We use multivariate regression and analysis of variance to identify the determinants of examiner shares. Examiner shares are highest for non-US applicants and in electronics, communications, and computer-related fields. However, most of the variation is explained by firm-specific variables, with the largest patent applicants having high examiner shares. Moreover, a large number of firms are granted patents that contain no applicant prior art. Taken together, our findings suggest that heterogeneity in firm-level patenting practices, in particular by high-volume applicants, has a strong influence on the data. This suggests that analysis of firm-level differences in patenting strategies is an important topic for future research.Technology, patents, patent examiners, prior art, citations

Research paradigms and useful inventions in medicine : patents and licensing by teams of clinical and basic scientists in Academic Medical Centers

In recent decades, teams that combine basic scientists with clinical researchers have become an important organizational mechanism to translate knowledge made in basic science (“the bench”) to tangible medical innovations (“the bedside”). Our study explores whether inventing teams that span basic and clinical research are more effective at licensing than teams comprised of inventors from only one domain. We propose that laboratory science and clinical research represent fundamentally different research paradigms that defy a simple arithmetic of combining the skills of individuals on teams. Clinical and basic researchers inhabit distinct cultures of work that yield different, and sometimes conflicting, beliefs and approaches to problem-solving. We claim that the complexity and variability of most human medical problems limits the role of basic science in medical innovation. Instead, we argue that clinical research remains an important engine of innovation, even in a period of rapid advances in molecular and genetics sciences, and advanced analytical techniques, because clinical researchers have unique opportunities for insights that emerge from the joint activities of research and close observations of living patients. Our empirical analysis focuses on patents and licenses from two prominent Academic Medical Centers (AMCs) over a 30 year period. In hazard models of licensing we find, controlling for a range of effects, that inventions by teams composed of clinical researchers (MDs) are more likely to be licensed than inventions by teams of basic scientists (PhDs), and that inventions that include both MDs and PhDs are not more likely to be licensed. This leads us to question the translational model of combining expertise to bridge different domains. We also find that the training of the team leader has an effect on licensing that is independent of team composition, lending support to our interpretation. Our results help inform policy about the relationship between research paradigms, team composition, and successful innovation in bio-medicine

Mapping national knowledge networks: Scientists, firms, and institutions in biotechnology in the United States and France

This study investigates how national institutions influence innovation in a science-based industry. The context is the biotechnology industry in the United States and France, two countries with strong scientific and financial resources, but very different experiences in innovating from scientific discoveries. The study seeks to explain why scientific discoveries have led to the emergence a new industry in the United States but not in France, and how national differences in organizational demographics and the mobility of research scientists impact innovation outcomes. Drawing on the literature on comparative systems and technological networks, the study employs fieldwork, analysis of primary data, and statistical modeling. It tracks the patenting of over 15,000 scientists to map out national knowledge-sharing networks that include research laboratories, large firms and entrepreneurial start-ups. The effects of organizational form and scientists\u27 mobility are included in models of innovative performance. Separate chapters compare the history, policies and institutions governing laboratory-firm technology transfer and the careers of scientists. The focus is on the incentives of scientists to align themselves with entrepreneurial firms. In France, prestigious research institutions are a civil service, and there are strong incentives for scientists to remain employed by public-sector laboratories. In the United States, scientists\u27 careers embody a great deal of individual entrepreneurship and job mobility. As a result, entrepreneurial firms can more easily recruit academic scientists in the United States than in France. These differences are reflected in patent data that reveal very different organizational demographics. The models of patent citations show that the presence of entrepreneurial firms and specific pathways of mobility by scientists are associated with highly-cited patents in both countries. National innovative capacity is closely tied to institutions that shape organizational demographics and the incentives of scientists to exchange knowledge across organizational boundaries. The study highlights the importance of individual researchers in science-based industries, and shows that their contributions to innovation are strongly shaped by the national networks in which they are embedded

Mapping national knowledge networks: Scientists, firms, and institutions in biotechnology in the United States and France

This study investigates how national institutions influence innovation in a science-based industry. The context is the biotechnology industry in the United States and France, two countries with strong scientific and financial resources, but very different experiences in innovating from scientific discoveries. The study seeks to explain why scientific discoveries have led to the emergence a new industry in the United States but not in France, and how national differences in organizational demographics and the mobility of research scientists impact innovation outcomes. Drawing on the literature on comparative systems and technological networks, the study employs fieldwork, analysis of primary data, and statistical modeling. It tracks the patenting of over 15,000 scientists to map out national knowledge-sharing networks that include research laboratories, large firms and entrepreneurial start-ups. The effects of organizational form and scientists\u27 mobility are included in models of innovative performance. Separate chapters compare the history, policies and institutions governing laboratory-firm technology transfer and the careers of scientists. The focus is on the incentives of scientists to align themselves with entrepreneurial firms. In France, prestigious research institutions are a civil service, and there are strong incentives for scientists to remain employed by public-sector laboratories. In the United States, scientists\u27 careers embody a great deal of individual entrepreneurship and job mobility. As a result, entrepreneurial firms can more easily recruit academic scientists in the United States than in France. These differences are reflected in patent data that reveal very different organizational demographics. The models of patent citations show that the presence of entrepreneurial firms and specific pathways of mobility by scientists are associated with highly-cited patents in both countries. National innovative capacity is closely tied to institutions that shape organizational demographics and the incentives of scientists to exchange knowledge across organizational boundaries. The study highlights the importance of individual researchers in science-based industries, and shows that their contributions to innovation are strongly shaped by the national networks in which they are embedded

What Makes Research Socially Useful ? Complementarities between in-House Research and Firm-University Collaboration in Biotechnology

This paper analyses the published scientific papers of a large sample of biotechnology firms to study the relationship between firm-level research capabilities and collaboration with university scientists. The study presents new findings on the relationship of firm age, research capabilities, and collaboration. Firm-level research capabilities are measured as citations to papers. Younger firms publish more highlycited papers, supporting a view of firm founding to exploit new knowledge at the frontier of discovery. Collaboration with academic researchers increases citations to firm-authored papers, but only for firms with weaker in-house research capabilities. Firms with strong internal research capabilities do not benefit (in terms of increased citations) from collaboration, but are much more likely to collaborate with scientists at prestigious universities. The results show that firm-university collaboration involves knowledge transfer for some firms. At the same time, ties between firms and academic scientists may not represent an efficient mode of knowledge transfer as much as the adoption of the norms of open science by firms, whether as a strategy to gain privileged entry into scientific networks or simply because their managers are scientists who have a taste for academic research.Cet article se base sur les publications scientifiques d'un échantillon important d'entreprises de biotechnologies. Il étudie la relation entre les capacités de recherche privée et l'intensité des collaborations entre scientifiques privés et universitaires. L'étude présente des résultats originaux montrant l'existence d'une relation positive entre l'âge de l'entreprise, ses capacités de recherche et l'intensité de ses collaborations avec les universitaires. Les capacités de recherche de la firme sont mesurées à partir des citations de leurs articles publiés. Nous trouvons qu'en moyenne, ce sont les entreprises les plus jeunes qui publient les articles les plus cités, confirmant ainsi l'idée que les entreprises en création ont tendance à exploiter des connaissances à la frontière des découvertes. Par ailleurs, les collaborations avec les chercheurs académiques contribuent en effet à augmenter le nombre de citations des articles publiés par les entreprises, mais seulement pour les firmes aux capacités de recherche internes relativement faibles. Les entreprises aux fortes capacités internes de recherche bénéficient peu de ces collaborations (au sens où le nombre de citations de leurs publications n'augmente pas), mais ces dernières ont plus de chance de s'effectuer avec des scientifiques travaillant dans les universités les plus prestigieuses. Les résultats prouvent enfin que les collaborations entre entreprise et université conduisent à des transferts de connaissance dans certains cas. Il arrive aussi que les liens entre les entreprises et les scientifiques académiques ne représentent pas un mode de transfert aussi efficace que l'adoption par les entreprises de normes de libre accès scientifique, que ce soit en tant que stratégie pour accéder de façon privilégiée aux réseaux de recherche valorisables ou simplement parce que les managers sont des scientifiques qui ont un goût prononcé pour la recherche académique.Gittelman Michelle. What Makes Research Socially Useful ? Complementarities between in-House Research and Firm-University Collaboration in Biotechnology. In: Revue d'économie industrielle, vol. 110, 2e trimestre 2005. pp. 57-73

Child mental health : towards an end to modest proposals.

Gittelman M. Child mental health : towards an end to modest proposals. In: Enfance, tome 33, n°4-5, 1980. Congrès international de psychologie de l'enfant. pp. 263-267

Mapping national knowledge networks: Scientists, firms, and institutions in biotechnology in the United States and France

This study investigates how national institutions influence innovation in a science-based industry. The context is the biotechnology industry in the United States and France, two countries with strong scientific and financial resources, but very different experiences in innovating from scientific discoveries. The study seeks to explain why scientific discoveries have led to the emergence a new industry in the United States but not in France, and how national differences in organizational demographics and the mobility of research scientists impact innovation outcomes. Drawing on the literature on comparative systems and technological networks, the study employs fieldwork, analysis of primary data, and statistical modeling. It tracks the patenting of over 15,000 scientists to map out national knowledge-sharing networks that include research laboratories, large firms and entrepreneurial start-ups. The effects of organizational form and scientists\u27 mobility are included in models of innovative performance. Separate chapters compare the history, policies and institutions governing laboratory-firm technology transfer and the careers of scientists. The focus is on the incentives of scientists to align themselves with entrepreneurial firms. In France, prestigious research institutions are a civil service, and there are strong incentives for scientists to remain employed by public-sector laboratories. In the United States, scientists\u27 careers embody a great deal of individual entrepreneurship and job mobility. As a result, entrepreneurial firms can more easily recruit academic scientists in the United States than in France. These differences are reflected in patent data that reveal very different organizational demographics. The models of patent citations show that the presence of entrepreneurial firms and specific pathways of mobility by scientists are associated with highly-cited patents in both countries. National innovative capacity is closely tied to institutions that shape organizational demographics and the incentives of scientists to exchange knowledge across organizational boundaries. The study highlights the importance of individual researchers in science-based industries, and shows that their contributions to innovation are strongly shaped by the national networks in which they are embedded