Scientific and Technological Regimes in Nanotechnology: Combinatorial Inventors and Performance

Academics and policy makers are questioning about the relation between science and technology in the emerging field of nano science and technology (NST) and the effectiveness of different institutional regimes. We analyze the performance of inventors in the NST using multiple indicators. We clustered patents in three groups according to the scientific curricula of the inventors. The first two groups are composed by patents whose inventors respectively are all authors of at least one scientific publication in the NST and none of then has obtained a scientific publication in that field. Thirdly, we isolated those patents that have at least one inventor, who is also author of at least one scientific publication in the NST. The underlining presumption of this classification is that of a proxy of different institutional search regimes of the inventive activity; pure academic research, pure industrial R&D, and academic-industrial research partnerships.Science-Technology Relation, Emerging Field, Nanotechnology, Patent Quality, Inventive Productivity.

The Growth of Industrial Sectors: Theoretical Insights and Empirical Evidence from U.S. Manufacturing

In this paper, we study the growth rates of 4-digit sectors in U.S. manufacturing. Two measures of size (value of shipments, value added) are considered, for each of the 38 years (1959-1996) of a sample of 458 4-digit sectors, drawn from the NBER Manufacturing Productivity database. Whole sample results are partly in line with firm growth facts: (i) sectoral growth rates are distributed according to heavy-tailed Subbotin distributions, with shape coefficient between 1.0 (Laplace) and 1.5; (ii) the volatility of growth rates is decreasing with respect to size, with a scaling exponent varying over time, but always between -0.20 and -0.10. Preliminary analyses on more homogeneous groups cast doubts on the evidence of scaling, but leave basically unaffected the distributional properties of sectoral growth. These results shed light on the role of inter-firm correlations, market concentration, and positive intersectoral feedbacks as drivers of meso-economic dynamics.Sectoral Growth, Subbotin Distribution, Scaling, U.S. Manufacturing

Modelling credit risk for innovative firms: the role of innovation measures

Financial constraints are particularly severe for R&D projects of SMEs, which cannot generally rely on equity markets and, in the EU, on a sufficiently developed VC industry. If innovative SMEs have to depend on banks to finance their R&D projects, it is particularly important to develop models able to estimate their probability of default (PD) in consideration of their peculiar features. Based on the signaling value of some innovative assets, the purpose of this paper is to show the importance to include them into models which have proved to be successful for SMEs. To this end, we take a logit model and test it on a unique dataset of innovative SMEs (based on PATSTAT database, EPO BULLETIN and AMADEUS) to estimate a two-year PD with default years 2006-2008. In the regression analysis the innovation-related variables are two in order to account for R&D productivity at the level of the firm and to consider the value of the inventive output. Our analyses first address measurement issues concerning innovation-related variable and then show that, while the accounting variables and the patent value are always significant with the expected sign, the patent number per se reduces the PD only in the presence of an appropriate equity level.innovative SMEs; default probability; patent value

Financial Patenting in Europe

We take a first look at financial patents at the European Patent Office (EPO). As is the case at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the number of financial patents in Europe has increased significantly in parallel with significant changes in payment and financial systems. Scholars have argued that financial patents, like other business methods patents, have low value and are owned for strategic reasons rather than for protecting real inventions. We find that established firms in non-financial sectors with diversified patent portfolios own a large share of financial patents at the EPO. However, new specialized technology providers in the financial area also hold a number of such patents. Decisions on the financial patent applications take longer and they are more likely to be refused by the patent office, suggesting greater uncertainty over validity than for other patents. They are also more likely to be opposed, which is consistent with the fact that their other economic value indicators are higher.market valuation, intangible assets, patents, software, Europe

Which Patent Systems are Better for Inventors?

International comparisons of patent systems are essential to harmonization treaties and to analyze economic growth. Yet these comparisons often rely on little but conventional wisdom. This paper develops an empirical method to compare the economic strength and quality of patent systems by using renewal analysis of matched patents in different countries (same patent family). Comparing patents on the same inventions filed at the EPO for Germany and in the US, we find that the German patents generate substantially greater market power than their US equivalents, especially for small inventors. Also, the average US patent has relatively lower economic value (“quality”)

Financial Patenting in Europe

We take a first look at financial patents at the European Patent Office (EPO). As is the case at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the number of financial patents in Europe has increased significantly in parallel with significant changes in payment and financial systems. Scholars have argued that financial patents, like other business methods patents, have low value and are owned for strategic reasons rather than for protecting real inventions. We find that established firms in non-financial sectors with diversified patent portfolios own a large share of financial patents at the EPO. However, new specialized technology providers in the financial area also hold a number of such patents. Decisions on the financial patent applications take longer and they are more likely to be refused by the patent office, suggesting greater uncertainty over validity than for other patents. They are also more likely to be opposed, which is consistent with the fact that their other economic value indicators are higher.

Consolidating firm portfolios of patents across different offices. A comparison of sectoral distribution of patenting activities in Europe and Japan

This paper describes a methodology for the construction of a novel patent dataset for computing consolidated patent portfolios across patent offices. In particular, relying on two previous contributions – the EPIP database for EPO/PCT patents and the IIP patent database for JPO patent documents – we discuss how to integrate the applicant names of these two databases with the mean of priority information from PATSTAT. This methodology yields significant improvements in the harmonization of applicants name for European firms in IIP patent database and Japanese firms in EPIP database. The paper concludes with a first look to the differences in patenting strategy by European and Japanese firms

Consolidating firm portfolios of patents across different offices. A comparison of sectoral distribution of patenting activities in Europe and Japan

This paper describes a methodology for the construction of a novel patent dataset for computing consolidated patent portfolios across patent offices. In particular, relying on two previous contributions – the EPIP database for EPO/PCT patents and the IIP patent database for JPO patent documents – we discuss how to integrate the applicant names of these two databases with the mean of priority information from PATSTAT. This methodology yields significant improvements in the harmonization of applicants name for European firms in IIP patent database and Japanese firms in EPIP database. The paper concludes with a first look to the differences in patenting strategy by European and Japanese firms