Empirical Analyses of Company Patenting Behavior - Essays on the Role of Strategic Patenting, Standardization, Technology Exchange and Product Piracy

Abstract

We study the effect of strategic patenting motives on the characteristics of a company’s patent portfolios. First, we analyze the frequency of change requests (“amendments”) to the originally filed claims. We theorize that firms that patent for technology exchange have an incentive to shift the exact scope of a patent application to fit potential demand in the market for technology. Furthermore, a higher number of amendments proxies an above average effort in the application process and could therefore also be relevant for companies using the patent system for its original protection purpose. Subsequently, we address the relationship of amendments and forward citations. As amendments allow the applicant to incorporate knowledge gained after the original filing into the claims, amendments can result in patents of higher quality. We rely on survey data from 441 German companies and matched data on their respective patent portfolio including new EPO information on the application process. Using multivariate tobit models as well as two-staged least squares models, we find that, first, the technology exchange motive is related to a higher number of amendments, implying a strategic use of this instrument. Second, amendments are also associated with higher levels of citations, which suggests that they might be an instrument to raise patent quality or value. Since amendments are also partly responsible for the uncertainty in the patent system, the resulting trade-off “patent quality versus technological” certainty needs to be taken into account. Part I: Strategic Patenting, Technical Standards and Technology Exchange 14