High-quality Inventions Research Articles

Draw to a close: inventor triad dynamics and invention quality

ABSTRACT Instead of comparing open and closed triads as static phenomena, this study examines how closure dynamics among inventors impact the extent to which inventors generate high-quality inventions at the triad level. Combining literature on small group synergy, social networks, and recombinant innovation, we propose that initial open triads of collaborating inventors that turn into a closed triad generate higher quality inventions than triads that maintain open. We also examine how the connectedness of the triad moderates the relationship between triad closure and the generation of triadic high-quality inventions. Using a matched sample of open and closed triads from 1987 to 2008, we find that over time, open triads that turn into closed ones generate higher-quality inventions than triads that remain open. Moreover, the triad’s degree of connectedness weakens the triadic closure’s positive impact on inventive performance. We discuss the implications for the study of innovation, network triads, and collective synergy.

Induced Effect of Environmental Regulation on Green Innovation: Evidence from the Increasing-Block Pricing Scheme.

With increasing constraints on resources and the environment, it is of great practical importance to discover and utilize the induced effect of green technology through market-based tools, in order to simultaneously realize economic development and ecological sustainability. Based on unique patent data from 1999 to 2013, this paper examines the induced effect of China’s increasing-block electricity pricing scheme (IBP) on energy-efficient patents and checks whether the effect is neutral or biased. Furthermore, the quality of the induced patents is identified. The results reveal that increased green innovation is strongly related to the IBP scheme. In addition, the induced effect is biased towards green technology such that, apart from autonomous technological advances, the biased effect of IBP induced two more energy-efficient patents per hundred technological patents. However, the quality of the induced innovation is relatively low: compared to high-quality inventions, low-quality utility models showed greater and more significant growth due to the IBP. Our paper provides quantitative insight into the impact of the IBP and indicates that a reasonable pricing scheme can benefit both the environment and the economy.

HEALTH-PRENEURSHIP: MENGAPA ILMU KESEHATAN MASYARAKAT MEMBUTUHKAN SEORANG ENTREPRENEUR?

Pendahuluan: Dunia bisnis dalam beberapa tahun terakhir banyak diminati oleh generasi muda dari berbagai latar belakang pendidikan. Dunia medis pun harus berhadapan dengan persaingan bisnis dalam penyediaan layanan kesehatan. Pada hakikatnya, mahasiswa kedokteran mendapatkan pembelajaran tentang bisnis dalam kurikulum Ilmu Kesehatan Masyarakat lewat materi teori manajemen. Hal tersebut tidak dapat sepenuhnya terlaksana karena keterbatasan kurikulum pembelajaran. Bisnis dalam dunia kesehatan selayaknya linear dengan pelayanan kesehatan holistik dan berkualitas, komunikasi dokter-pasien yang efektif, sehingga perjalanan proses terapeutik berlangsung efektif dan terhindar dari berbagai hal negatif seperti ketidakpuasan pasien yang berujung pada tuntutan medis.Tujuan: Artikel ini digunakan sebagai bahan ajar perkuliahan health-entrepreneurship yang bertujuan untuk mengeksplorasi potensi entrepreneurship dalam bidang kesehatan, mengidentifikasi peran ilmu kesehatan masyarakat yang potensial dalam dunia bisnis untuk pembelajaran mahasiswa kedokteran dan merangsang adanya ide baru untuk berinovasi agar terwujud suatu kreativitas dan karya yang berkualitas.
 Metode: Penulisan artikel ini menggunakan metode tinjauan naratif sebagai bagian dari studi literatur.
 Diskusi: Materi entrepreneurship dalam bidang kedokteran tidak jauh dari ilmu kesehatan masyarakat. Mahasiswa belajar mengenai pemasaran, khususnya komunikasi dalam konteks promosi kesehatan yang berfokus kepada permintaan pasar dalam kurikulum entrepreneurship yang diajarkan. Seorang entrepreneur kesehatan diharapkan dapat menjaga kaidah pemasaran dalam etis kedokteran, dapat menjadi praktisi, problem solver, serta turut berkontribusi dalam bidang epidemiologi, kesehatan lingkungan, biostatistik, kebijakan kesehatan, manajemen pelayanan kesehatan, serta ilmu perilaku dan sosial.

Technology and Innovation in China: A Patent Citation-based Analysis

With the unique dataset from the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of the People’s Republic of China, this study aims to provide a patent citation-based analysis of technological innovation in China. This study provides an overall description of Chinese invention patent citations, including citations added by both inventors and examiners. Specifically, our work analyses the inventor citations and examiner citations of both international- and domestic-granted patents in SIPO from four different aspects: citations per patent, foreign citation dependence, highly cited patents and current impact index. Our research results indicate the following: (a) the quantity of citations per patent added by foreign applicants was much larger than that of the Chinese applicants in SIPO, and both decreased year after year. (b) Chinese applicants cited many technological references from seven major foreign countries and drew greatly from external technology and science, but Chinese applicants tended to refer more to domestic technology. (c) The overall impact of Chinese patents became stronger, but invention patents in some developed regions had only relatively weak technological impact. (d) The number of high-quality invention patents surged in every province, but high-quality patents remain mainly distributed in four developed areas. Finally, we propose several suggestions from a policy perspective.

The Influencing Factors of University Teachers' Willingness to Disclose Inventions - Empirical Study from China

University teachers selectively disclosing inventions leads to a serious loss of high-value inventions in colleges, which seriously hinders the transformation process of university patents. To promote achievement transformation, Sichuan Province took the lead in carrying out the pilot reform of the mixed ownership of employee inventions in universities in China and encouraged professional inventors to transform achievements with property rights. However, whether university teachers are willing to disclose high-quality inventions to universities is unknown, and the stimulating effect of reforms on college teachers remains to be examined. From the perspective of the current situation of university teachers' willingness to disclose inventions in the process of the transformation of university patents, this paper selects teachers from seven universities in Sichuan Province, China, as the objects of the questionnaire, including Sichuan University and Southwest Jiaotong University. The study uses a structural equation model and draws the following conclusions: university teachers' characteristics, incentive mechanisms, and invention characteristics are positively related to their willingness to disclose inventions; enterprise activities are negatively related to university teachers' willingness to disclose inventions; and the influence of patent examination on the intention of invention disclosure is weak.

Knowledge production in the co-invention process: the influence of knowledge similarity on co-invention performance

ABSTRACT I model the dynamics of the amount of knowledge being learnt and created in the co-invention process between two inventors, by highlighting interpersonal knowledge similarity. Further, I employ U.S. inventor-dyad-level patent data (including 250,546 inventor-dyads) to examine the relationship between knowledge similarity and co-invention performance of the two-inventor teams. The preliminary findings are consistent with the model that predicts a left-skewed inverted U-shaped relationship, suggesting that co-invention performance measured by number of patents is better in teams that consist of inventors with a medium level of similarity in technological knowledge prior to the co-invention process, and that the performance measured by weighted patents is better in teams with more technologically dissimilar members. The study enriches the literature on economics of innovation by explicating knowledge production of inventors in the co-invention process and revealing the left-skewed inverted U-shaped relationship between knowledge similarity and knowledge production performance. In practices, the study suggests assembling teams with technologically dissimilar members for optimal knowledge production performance, especially for the purpose of producing high-quality inventions.

Verifying High Quality: Entry for Sale

When and how do entrepreneurs sell their inventions? To address this issue, we develop an endogenous entry-sale asymmetric information oligopoly model. We show that low quality inventions are sold directly or used for own entry. Inventors who sell post-entry use entry to credibly reveal information on quality. Incumbents are then willing to pay high prices for high-quality inventions to preempt rivals from obtaining them. Using Swedish data on patents granted to small firms and individuals, we find evidence that high-quality inventions are sold under preemptive bidding competition, post entry.

Where to Go: Trade Protectionism or Open Competition? Evidence from Micro-enterprise Innovation

Where to Go: Trade Protectionism or Open Competition? Evidence from Micro-enterprise Innovation

Rewards for Patents and Inventor Behaviors in Industrial Research and Development

This study investigates the effects of rewards in a research and development (R&D) setting in which employees’ inventive efforts lead to patented inventions. Pay for performance (PFP) for inventions is associated with two challenges: Low-quality inventions may be rewarded (false positives), and high-quality inventions may be overlooked (false negatives). Building on previous findings regarding the motivational and informational effects of rewards, we use social identity theory to predict that different types of inventors react differently to such false positive and false negative information. Specifically, we hypothesize that PFP that produces false positives has detrimental effects on corporate inventors with a taste for science, who are motivated by scientific prestige, reputation, and intellectual curiosity. The empirical results from survey data related to 3,995 inventor–patent pairs show that, for this particular group of inventors, false positives are associated with reduced effort in research activ...

It’s a Man’s Job: Income and the Gender Gap in Industrial Research

This study examines differences in income and job performance between women and men in creative, highly skilled jobs tasked with achieving technological inventions. By building on data pertaining to 9,692 inventors from 23 countries, this study shows that female inventors represent only 4.2% of total inventors, and they earn about 14% less than their male peers. The gap persists even when controlling for sources of heterogeneity, the selection of inventors into types of jobs and tasks, and potential parenthood, instrumented by exploiting a source of variation related to religious practices. The income gap is not associated with differences in the quality of the inventions that female and male inventors produce. Thus, even in this human capital–intensive profession, where capabilities and education are important assets, and productivity differentials can be observed, women earn less than men, though they contribute to the development of high-quality inventions as much as men do.This paper was accepted by Lee Fleming, entrepreneurship and innovation.

The allocation and effectiveness of China’s R&D subsidies - Evidence from listed firms

In this study we investigate the allocation of China’s R&D subsidies and their effectiveness in stimulating business R&D investments for the population of Chinese listed firms between 2001 and 2006. With respect to subsidy allocation, we find that firm selection is mainly determined by prior grants, high quality inventions, and minority state-ownership. Market-oriented provincial governments distribute grants less frequently, and firms located in developed provinces receive grants more often. Considering effectiveness, R&D subsidies instantaneously crowd-out business R&D investment but are neutral in later periods. In 2006, one public RMB reduces business R&D investments by half an RMB. However, crowding-out is not prevalent for repeated recipients of R&D subsidies, high-tech firms, and minority state-owned firms.

Creative destruction and productive preemptive acquisitions

We develop a model of entrepreneurial innovation for entry and sale into oligopolies suitable for welfare analysis. We show that the expected consumer welfare can be higher under commercialization by sale than under commercialization by entry despite increased market power in the product market. The reason is that when the quality of the invention is sufficiently high, preemptive bidding competition among incumbents drives the acquisition price above the entry value. Entrepreneurs who sell their inventions will then have a stronger incentive to develop high-quality inventions than entrepreneurs who aim at entering the product market. Incumbents are hurt by this creative destruction process ignited by the entrepreneurs and thus have an incentive to undertake research to block entrepreneurs' research activities. We show that incumbents' own research effort can reduce, but not eliminate, the entrepreneurs' incentives to innovate for entry or sale.

China's R&D Subsidies Allocation and Effectiveness

This study investigates the allocation of China’s R&D subsidies and its effectiveness in stimulating firms’ own R&D investments for the population of Chinese listed firms throughout the time period 2001 to 2006. For allocation, we find that firm participation is determined by prior grants, high quality inventions, and minority state-ownership. Provincial variation in China’s transition towards a market-driven economy reveals that R&D subsidies are less often distributed by more market-oriented provincial governments and that China’s innovation policy is more supportive of firms located in developed provinces. Considering effectiveness, we find that grants instantaneously crowd-out firms’ own R&D investments but are neutral in later periods. In 2006, one public RMB reduces own R&D investments made by firms by half a RMB. For repeated recipients, high-tech firms, and minority state-owned firms grants have an insignificant effect.

Creative Destruction and Productive Preemption

We develop a theory of commercialization mode (entry or sale) of entrepreneurial inventions into oligopoly, and show that an invention of higher quality is more likely to be sold (or licensed) to an incumbent due to strategic product market effects on the sales price. Moreover, preemptive acquisitions by incumbents are shown to stimulate the process of creative destruction by increasing the entrepreneurial effort allocated to high-quality invention projects. Using detailed data on patents granted to small firms and individuals, we find evidence that high-quality inventions are often sold, and that they are sold under bidding competition.

Creative Destruction and Productive Preemption

We develop a theory of innovation for entry and sale into oligopoly, and show that an invention of higher quality is more likely to be sold (or licensed) to an incumbent due to strategic product market effects on the sales price. Preemptive acquisitions by incumbents are shown to stimulate the process of creative destruction by increasing the entrepreneurial effort allocated to high-quality invention projects. Using data on patents granted to small firms and individuals, we find evidence that high-quality inventions are sold under bidding competition. Asymmetric informatio np roblems are shown to be solved by verification through entry for sale.

Innovation market – the economic exploitation of property rights in high-quality inventions

The paper describes the “innovation market”, a specialised information and intermediary service operated on the Internet and launched by the German government in 1998. The innovation market is designed to help to establish contact between people with ideas and providers of capital (for start-up, seed or growth finance) and companies (interested in obtaining a licence or acquiring a patent). Entries in the innovation market are examined and assessed by 18 innovation partners. This preliminary examination is based on jointly agreed criteria and rules, so that only ideas of lasting value should be found in the innovation market. Organised quality assurance and demand-oriented processing make it easier for potential investors and companies to obtain a broad overview of the innovative projects on offer, and the associated intellectual property rights.