The role of international collaborations in securing the patent grant

Abstract

Our study examines whether patent applications with international collaborations are more likely to be awarded a US patent than applications without. It contributes significantly to the growing literature that examines from the innovator’s viewpoint the likelihood of securing the patent grant. The analysis focuses on the full sample (almost half a million) of patent applications over the period 2001-2009 at the USPTO, that disclosed at least one EU located inventor, and furthermore, explicitly distinguishes between countries with high and low number of patent applications. Firstly, we find that applications from teams rather than individual inventors are more successful in obtaining a patent grant, and that results are even better for international teams. Our key finding is that the presence of a US entity, either as inventor or owner, plays an important role in securing the grant. For low innovative countries, other types of international collaborations also matter significantly pointing to the benefits for these countries to become more extrovert. We further find that a large part of the US ‘effect’ can be attributed to additional prosecution efforts, as it is evident by continuing patent applications.