Patent Statistics as an Innovation Indicator

Sadao Nagaoka, Kazuyuki Motohashi and Akira Goto

Chapter Chapter 25 in Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, 2010, vol. 2, pp 1083-1127 from Elsevier

Abstract: This chapter summarizes the basic characteristics of patent data as an innovation indicator and reviews some of the recent research using patent data, focusing on major developments since Griliches in 1990 [Griliches, Z. (1990). “Patent statistics as economic indicators: A survey”. Journal of Economic Literature 28, 1661–1707]. The first notable development is the availability of patent data on an increasingly global scale and the accompanying global spread of research using patent data. The availability of global patent data has increased the value of patent information in a number of ways. The second notable development is the significant expansion of research using citation information as well as better understanding of its nature. Citation information has been found to provide very useful information on the value of patents, although backward citation as a measure of information flow is found to be more controversial. The third major development is the extensive implementation of surveys such as the “innovation survey” of firms and the inventor survey. They have deepened our understanding of the usefulness and the constraints of bibliographic indicators based on patent. The forth development is better understanding of the nature of the patent system and the reformulation of patent data, a good example of which is the development of patent family data, based on priority information.

Keywords: patent; innovation; invention; R&D; citation; spillover; O31; O34; O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (151)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169721810020095
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:haechp:v2_1083

DOI: 10.1016/S0169-7218(10)02009-5

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Handbook of the Economics of Innovation from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().