Abstract
Evaluating the values of patents is critical for both managers and investors. Patent maintenance time is an ideal proxy indicator for evaluating commercial patent value. This study investigated the survival rates of patents in the semiconductor industry by using a survival analysis and incorporated a predictive model for patent maintenance times. The technical characteristics of the patents, the assignee factors, and the statuses of the patents were used as the predictive factors for patent maintenance time. The results revealed a small entity size and the number of assignees are the risk factors that increase the likelihood of the maintenance time of a patent decreasing. The litigation status of a patent and the number of its international patent classifications, claims, forward citations, and assignments were determined to be the protection factors that raise the likelihood of its maintenance time extending. Additionally, substantial differences were noted between small entities and nonsmall entities and between being litigated and not in their effects on the survival rates of patents. This study examined the factors that affect the survival rates of patents and provides a reference for the managers and investors of intellectual property rights to use when assessing technical and commercial patent values.
Highlights
Since the arrival of the knowledge economy, the governments of advanced countries have paid considerable attention to the economic benefits achieved by owning intellectual properties, which have become one of the key factors of economic development
No consensus has been formed on how to measure commercial patent value, we maintained that estimating patent maintenance time is a practical means for doing so
This study focused on patent maintenance time to examine its related factors and assess commercial patent value
Summary
Since the arrival of the knowledge economy, the governments of advanced countries have paid considerable attention to the economic benefits achieved by owning intellectual properties, which have become one of the key factors of economic development. The existence of commercial patent value is typically indicated by the intentions of assignees to continue their payments to maintain their claims [10]. Recent empirical studies have employed identification models to explore the factors associated with patent maintenance time [9, 14, 15], such as maintenance fees [14,15,16], technological domains [9, 15, 17], the extents of forward citations [2], and the number of claims [9]. Survival analysis has been applied in previous studies to investigate patent maintenance time [21,22,23,24], nearly no study has implemented a survival analysis to explore the characteristics of patents during their approval processes and their statuses after their approval, such as of being assigned and litigated, as well as considered the sizes and types of assignees. This study incorporated a survival analysis to such an effect
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