Academic Inventors, Technological Profiles and Patent Value: An Analysis of Academic Patents Owned by Swedish-Based Firms

Abstract

This paper analyses the relationship between academic inventors and firms, focusing on the relation between academic inventors, the technological profiles of firms and patent value. In particular, this paper focuses on the value of academic patents as compared to non-academic patents, owned by large firms based in Sweden. One finding is that academic patents have a short-term disadvantage, which disappears in the long term. Our results also indicate that controlling for whether the patent belongs to a core or non-core technology relative to the firm's technological profile neutralizes the premium of non-academic patents. In other words, patents belonging to firms' core technologies have significantly higher value, regardless of whether they are academic or non-academic patents. The above results indicate that the technological profile of firms is an important characteristic to analyse, when examining the value of academic patents and the specific role that academics play in industrial invention.