Patenting Activity Research Articles

The impact of business owners’ individual characteristics on patenting in the context of digital innovation

As digital transformation accelerates, generating demand for new digital products, processes, and technologies, it is necessary to create consensus among all the actors involved on the company's digital innovation strategies. Owners greatly influence a company's objectives and design: they represent a group to which the top management must pay particular attention. Understanding which individual aspects of the owners influence digital innovation processes becomes very important. However, studies on the impact of owners' characteristics on digital innovation are rare. This article analyzes over 550 patent-holder firms engaged in digital innovation to fill this gap. The study evaluates the relationship between owners’ characteristics and patenting activity. The results show a significant impact of gender diversity, education, and minority status of the owners on digital innovation. By favoring a deeper understanding of the profile of owners concerning digital innovation, the findings of this study help top management identify more effective engagement strategies for a better performance of the digital transformation process.

Identifying entrepreneurial discovery processes with weak and strong technology signals: a text mining approach.

This study aims to propose methods for identifying entrepreneurial discovery processes with weak/strong signals of technological changes and incorporating technology foresight in the design and planning of the Smart Specialization Strategy (S3). For this purpose, we first analyse patent abstracts from 2000 to 2009, obtained from the European Patent Office and use a keyword-based text mining approach to collect weak and strong technology signals; the word2vec algorithm is also employed to group weak signal keywords. We then utilize Correlation Explanation (CorEx) topic modelling to link technology weak/strong signals to invention activities for the period 2010-2018 and use the ANOVA statistical method to examine the relationship between technology weak/strong signals and patent values. The results suggest that patents related to weak rather than strong signals are more likely to be high-impact innovations and to serve as a basis for future technological developments. Furthermore, we use latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modelling to analyse patent activities related to weak/strong technology signals and compute regional topic weights. Finally, we present implications of the research.

Foreign Divestment – Crisis or Chance for China's Innovation Edge?

AbstractThe recent move towards decoupling from China, prompted by the 2018 trade conflict, has implications for the innovativeness of Chinese firms. Using patent data from the Chinese State Intellectual Property Office, together with comprehensive firm‐level data, and applying an inverse propensity score reweighting methodology to deal with selection bias, we estimated changes in the patenting activity of firms following ownership transition to Chinese owners, linking these changes to the differential taxation incentives offered to foreign investors. Far from crippling innovation, divestment has sparked an increase in patent applications – including higher end invention patents – and other innovation measures. Together with robustness checks, our estimations suggest a real improvement in innovation rather than just a window‐dressing exercise. We suggest that one possible explanation may be an effort by the new Chinese owners to reduce their tax burden. Our supplementary findings on tax payments and subsidy receipts following divestment appear in line with this interpretation.

Effects of innovation stimuli regulation in the electricity sector: A quantitative study on European countries

The energy transition is characterized by decarbonization, decentralization, and digitalization trends in the electricity sector, increasing the demand for novel technologies and innovation. Nevertheless, there are still challenges in the electricity sector to provide proper innovation incentives, often attributed to the slow technological dynamics of the sector and its regulated nature. As a response to insufficient levels of innovation, numerous European countries introduced innovation-stimuli regulations in the electricity sector during the second half of the 2000s. To evaluate the impact of these regulations on innovation, we employed a difference-in-differences (DiD) model on a panel data set with 21 European countries covering the period from 1991 to 2016, using patents as a dependent variable. In addition to the canonical DiD, we performed group-specific treatment effects to estimate the difference among the “early adopters” and “late adopters” countries of innovation-stimuli regulation. We find that the introduction of innovation-stimuli regulation has positively impacted patenting activities in the electricity sector, especially among the “early adopters”. These results suggest that innovation-stimuli regulation can be an important regulatory tool to foster further innovation that is required to complete the energy transition.

A Study on Finding Partners through Patent Network Analysis of UAM (Urban Air Mobility)

This paper presents an open innovation strategy by identifying the patent impact index and cooperation network through patent analysis for leading companies developing technology in the UAM field. Among companies developing UAM technology, patent analysis was conducted on the leading companies with active patent activities, technology classification was used to match companies by parts, and a technical capability index was utilized to identify the companies. When developing UAM technology in the future, this can help companies seek effective partners to improve competitiveness in technology development. To the best of our knowledge, the work done in this paper is unprecedented, as it suggests methods for patent analysis and verifies them by analyzing the UAM patents with the proposed method.

Patents, family, and size: evidence from Italian manufacturing firms

ABSTRACT This study explores whether the probability to patent differs between family and non-family firms, and whether any potential difference between firm-type is moderated by size. The analysis is based on a large archive of patenting activities (Orbis–PATSTAT dataset) carried out by around 3700 Italian manufacturing firms over the 2010–2017 period. The results from a random effect probit model show that family firms patent less than non-family firms (the estimated average marginal effect of family ownership ranges from −0.055 to −0.032 according to model specification). Furthermore, the size effect is positive in every model, suggesting that the probability of patenting increases with size. While it is demonstrated that family firms remain less likely to patent than non-family firms, we also show that their disadvantages increase as they grow in size: in large firms, the probability of patenting is 0.22 for family firms and 0.39 for non-family firms. Importantly, the results hold when considering patent counts, citations and a number of additional sensitivity tests.

Re evaluating Indias Third Mission through Top Ranked Universities & Technological Institutes

The present study explores the patenting activities of the faculty staff of the top 20 Indian academic and engineering institutes during 2011-2020 by excavating the Indian patent office database. Of the total 963 granted patents, the highest patents were published in 2016, and the academician of IIT Madras invented 167 patents followed by IIT Mumbai with 156 patents during this period. Most of the innovation takes place in the macro-field like chemical engineering, and micro-fields like nano-technology, nano-materials, and nano-complex. Collaboration with inventors of the same academic institution is found as the best choice of the inventors, only a meagre portion of patents was published in collaboration with of industries and organisations around the globe. The tag ‘highest number of patents inventor’ goes to Padma Shri Prof. Thalappil Pradeep of IIT Madras who has contributed 19 Indian patents in the last 10 years.

The Role of Patents for Economic Growth at Macro and Micro Level

The purpose of the present study is to examine the extent to which patents have an impact on GDP and net profit. The object of the study are the changes in the GDP of two technologically highly developed countries – Japan and South Korea, and two technologically underdeveloped countries – Russia and Brazil, as well as the changes in the net profit of leading companies in these countries. The subject of the study is the comparison of the impact of patent activity through newly issued patents by the European Patent Office, and unemployment and foreign direct investment at the macroeconomic level and the share price, gross income and gross debt at the microeconomic level. Comparative analysis and least squares method have been used. It is expected that the role of patent activity will be stronger in the considered technologically highly developed countries and companies and correspondingly weaker in the considered technologically underdeveloped countries and companies.

Identifying Trends and Quantifying Growth for Technological Innovation in Knee Arthroplasty: An Analysis of a Patent Database (1990 to 2020).

Technological innovation is the key for surgical progress in knee arthroplasty and improvement in patient outcomes. Exploring patented technologies can help elucidate trends and growth for numerous innovative technologies. However, patent databases, which contain millions of patents, remain underused in arthroplasty research. Therefore, the present study aimed to: (1) quantify patent activity; (2) group patents related to similar technologies into well-defined clusters; and (3) compare growth between technologies in the field of knee arthroplasty over a 30-year period. An open-source international patent database was queried from January 1990 to January 2020 for all patents related to knee arthroplasty A search strategy identified 70,154 patents, of which 24,425 were unique and included analysis. Patents were grouped into 14 independent technology clusters using Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) codes. Patent activity was normalized via a validated formula adjusting for exponential growth. Compound annual growth rates (CAGR) were calculated (5-year, 10-year, and 30-year CAGR) and compared for each cluster. Overall yearly patent activity increased by 2,023%, from 104 patents in 1990 to 2,208 patents in 2020. The largest technology clusters were "drugs" (n = 5,347; 23.8%), "components" (n = 4,343; 19.0%), "instruments" (n = 3,130; 13.7%), and "materials" (n = 2,378; 10.4%). The fastest growing technologies with their 5-year CAGR were: "user interfaces for surgical systems" (58.1%); "robotics" (28.6%); "modularity" (21.1%); "navigation" (15.7%); and "computer modeling" (12.5%). Since 1990, overall patent growth rate has been greatest for "computer modeling" (8.4%), "robotics" (8.0%), "navigation" (7.9%), and "patient-specific instrumentation" (6.4%). Most patents in knee arthroplasty for the last 30 years have focused on drugs, components, instruments, and materials. Recent exponential growth was mainly observed for user interfaces for surgical systems, robotics, modularity, navigation, and computer-assisted technologies. Innovation theory would suggest that these rapidly growing technologies are experiencing high innovation output, increased resource investments, growing adoption by providers, and significant clinical impact. Periodic monitoring of technological innovation via patent databases can be useful to establish trends and future directions in the field of knee arthroplasty.

Agglomeration, recombinant innovation and the role of market reforms in a transitioning China

ABSTRACT This paper estimates a knowledge production function to study the effects of local spillovers on the patenting activity and new innovation sales of Chinese firms during a period marked by rapid economic reform. We show that local spillovers expected to arise between co-located firms in related industries encourages firm innovation outcomes, especially among firms that diversify their core competencies into new related (versus unrelated) technological domains. Exploiting the gradual and spatially uneven economic transitioning process as a quasi-natural experiment, we find that the positive effects of relatedness on firm innovation are significantly larger in size following more intense market-oriented reforms. The results are potentially relevant for policy-makers in transitioning economies, highlighting for the first time the importance of firms' own diversification process and market-oriented reforms for encouraging innovation-enhancing technological related spillovers.

Technologies for the prevention and extinguishing of wildfires in Russia and the world: the dynamics of patent activity and patentological prospects

Рresents a patent review of technologies for the prevention and extinguishing of wildfires in the Russian Federation and the world over the last 30 years. The analysis of patent documents shows that there have been around 300 patent applications per year throughout the study period. The patent offices of China and the United States possess the largest number of patent families. In addition, China has a large number of patents with little legal protection, i.e. to protect specific technical solutions. In the Russian Federation, research organizations in the regions with extensive forest resources and a complex fire situation focus on developments in the field of prevention and extinguishing of wildfires. Technical solutions of Russian developers are relevant since they correspond to global patenting trends and have the thoroughly studied application materials. However, Russian patent holders experience difficulties when their developments enter into civil circulation, which decreases the number of valid protective documents. Thus, the transfer of technologies for the prevention and extinguishing of forest fires needs to be developed. The main technological areas of application are Environmental Technologies, Control, Transport, Measurement, and Computer and Telecommunication Technologies. The distribution shows that traditional ways of fighting fires are being improved, mainly fire-fighting equipment with the most active development of technologies for detecting, monitoring and controlling forest fires. Additional analysis of records has identified software products, registered in the Russian Federation, which are designed to prevent and extinguish wildfires. The prospects of patenting have been assessed and the features of conducting a patent search on this subject have been indicated.

The patent landscape in the field of stem cell therapy: closing the gap between research and clinic

Stem cell technology is a powerful tool ready to respond to the needs of modern medicine that is experiencing rapid technological development. Given its potential in therapeutic applications, intellectual property rights (IPR) as a protection resource of knowledge are a relevant topic. Patent eligibility of stem cells has been controversial as restrictions to access the fundamental technologies open a gap between research and clinic. Therefore, we depicted the current patent landscape in the field to discuss if this approach moves forward in closing this breach by examining patent activity over the last decade from a transdisciplinary perspective. Stem cell therapeutic applications is an area of continuous growth where patent filing through the PCT is the preferred strategy. Patenting activity is concentrated in the USA, European Union, and Australia; this accumulation in a few key players leads to governance, regulation, and inequality concerns. To boost wealthiness and welfare in society - stem cell therapies' ultimate goal - while at post-pandemic recovery, critical elements in the field of IPR rise to overcome current limitations: to promote bridge builders able to connect the research and business worlds, regulatory updates, novel financing models, new vehicles (startups, spinouts, and spin-offs), and alternative figures of intellectual property.

TECHNOLOGY PURCHASE, IN-HOUSE R&D, AND PATENTING: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF FIRMS IN HIGH- AND MEDIUM-TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRIES IN INDIA

This study examines the relationship between technology purchase, in-house R&D, and patenting activities of firms in India’s high- and medium-technology industries. The study is divided into two periods, i.e., 1995–2005 and 2006–2015, based on the pre- and post-product patent amendment 1 act, 2005. We employ a negative binomial model with fixed and random effects to estimate the impact of technology purchase over R&D and patenting activity, respectively. The estimates of the R&D equation suggest a complementary relationship between technology purchase and in-house R&D. However, the estimates of the patents equation suggest a substitute relationship between in-house and technology purchase. Further, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between in-house R&D, technology purchase, and patenting activities. However, the interaction between in-house R&D and technology purchase positively moderates the nonlinear relationships. Lastly, our estimated result is sensitive to different industries and periods. 1 The product patent amendment act came into effect with The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs-2005) in India.

Which will be your firm’s next technology? Comparison between machine learning and network-based algorithms

We reconstruct the innovation dynamics of about two hundred thousand companies by following their patenting activity for about ten years. We define the technology portfolios of these companies as the set of the technological sectors present in the patents they submit. By assuming that companies move more frequently towards related sectors, we leverage their past activity to build network-based and machine learning algorithms to forecast the future submissions of patents in new sectors. We compare different prediction methodologies using suitable evaluation metrics, showing that tree-based machine learning algorithms outperform the standard methods based on networks of co-occurrences. This methodology can be applied by firms and policymakers to disentangle, given the present innovation activity, the feasible technological sectors from those that are out of reach.

Use of Patent Information to Characterize Trends in the Therapeutic Applications of Extracellular Vesicles Derived from Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSC-EVs).

Extracellular vesicles derived from mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC-EVs) are gaining interest for medical purposes. The promising therapeutic effects exhibited in both preclinical and clinical studies have suggested that they may become an alternative for certain applications to cell-based therapies, which are subjected to stricter regulations. The commercial exploitation of these candidates requires a proper patent strategy from both the industry and public research organizations. Here, we performed a global patent literature analysis to identify key players and therapeutic applications in the field. Our results showed an increasing rate of patent publications since 2009, with Asia (specifically China) leading the patenting activity. The therapeutic use of MSC-EVs within patent literature covers a wide range of diseases, in which "Dermal and Wounds," "Neurology" and "Cardiovascular" are the main therapeutic areas. Moreover, most of these patents include "productby- process" claims, since the therapeutic effects of MSC-EVs could be influenced by their manufacturing process. Our results followed scientific and clinical literature trends.

Innovations for microbiome targeting interventions - a patent landscape analysis indicating overall patenting activity decline and promising target disease areas.

The human microbiota have been implicated in the aetiology and remedy of a host of disorders. However, due to the pervasive uncertainty inherent in the field of microbiota-targeting interventions and associated issues with establishing rigorous safety and efficacy profiles, regulatory oversight is suboptimal. This can dissuade innovators from further exploring novel and much needed health interventions. Modification of regulatory protocols and practices requires focussed efforts and funding to build the evidence base around future regulatory needs. Such modification can be critically informed by identification of changes and trends in technology fields to facilitate identification of regulatory gaps. To this purpose, this study rigorously collected and analysed patent data from Espacenet - covering the years 2013-2018 - and created a patent landscape analysis of microbiome targeting interventions with a focus on medicinal products. Pertinent patenting activity has declined overall. While, in absolute terms, patents most frequently claimed inventions targeting disorders of the gut and alimentary tract, relative year-on-year interest increases have been substantial for cancer, and disorders of the (neuro-)muscular and respiratory systems - driven by the private sector. Academic stakeholders showed top interest in disorders of the metabolism, anti-infectives, and skeletal and dermatological diseases. Although medicinal preparation claims dominated our dataset, a third of patents claimed food preparations, while only 1% claimed application as a diagnostic. Finally, China is, by an inordinate margin, a market of particular interest for both domestic and foreign innovators, indicating that microbiome targeting intervention innovation for EU and US markets might be frustrated. This study is the first to empirically demonstrate that live biotherapeutic product innovation is decelerating and potentially frustrated, supporting the urgent need for improved regulatory standards. Our results indicate which disease areas deserve particular attention for research funding to facilitate proper regulatory appraisal in the near- to mid-term future.

Problems of patenting inventions created using artificial intelligence: doctrine and practice

Keywords: intellectual property, artificial intelligence, inventor, software, examination,patent, digital transformation
 The dynamics of development of the worldmarket of artificial intelligence (AI), patent activity in this field, problematic issuesarising in connection with the patenting of inventions created using AI are studied.Aspects of doctrine formation and policy development in the field of intellectual property(IP) and AI are considered. Features of examination of patentability of inventionscreated with the use of AI in different jurisdictions (EPO, USA, Germany, China), foreignlegislation, doctrinal positions and case law in this field are analysed. Accordingto the analysis of the Artificial Inventor project, DABUS applications indicating theAI system as the inventor, submitted in 17 jurisdictions, were mostly rejected at thelevel of intellectual property offices and as a result of court appeals. In general, theapplicant failed to persuade the IP courts and agencies with his arguments, despitedifferences in national law and patent systems.
 The main provisions of the draft law «On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine» OnProtection of Rights to Inventions and Utility Models «on the regulation of relationsarising in relation to inventions and utility models created using artificial intelligence» are considered. It is concluded that the Law on the Protection of Rights to Inventionsand Utility Models excludes computer programs from patented objects. Theirminority is stated in the total number of filed applications and issued patents. Between1980 and 2018, only 740 such applications were published (1.26% of the total).The rules for compiling, submitting and reviewing an application for an invention(utility model) in Ukraine are outdated and do not reflect aspects of AI. Only a comprehensiveapproach (changes in legislation and improvement of expertise) will solvethis problem.

R&D Offshoring and its Effects on the Patenting Activity of Chinese Firms

Involvement in R&D offshoring can result in loss in the ability of the offshoring firms to innovate. To prevent this, firms can design strategies to foster technology transfer by enhancing possibilities to re-adapt and re-invent the foreign-developed technologies. This paper examines the effect of two different modes of governance of R&D offshoring –market and hierarchies - on the patenting activity of indigenous firms, as well as how strategies for enhancing re-adaptation, innovation around and re-invention moderates those effects. We examine this issue empirically using data from 2011 to 2014 for a sample of 312 firms, classified as 'high and new-tech enterprises' located in the Hebei Province of China. Results suggest that governing R&D offshoring through market influence positively firms’ patenting activity, while vertically integrating R&D offshoring though the establishment of R&D labs in industrialized countries has a negative effect. Collaboration with domestic universities and public research organizations seem to stimulate the reinvention of foreign-developed technologies, accessed either through market or hierarchies, and in this way it enhances the effect of R&D offshoring on firms’ patenting activity. On the contrary, employment of foreign staff seems to substitute the effect of R&D offshoring, especially of the vertical integration mode, suggesting that foreign staff may foster knowledge transfer and adaptation but not necessarily re-invention or innovation around the foreign-developed technologies. Our study extends the debate of R&D offshoring to domestic independent firms and suggests boundary conditions for reaping the benefits from R&D offshoring.

Specialization in Different Innovation Tasks and the Generation of High-value Innovations

Building on the learning theory and technology landscape literature, this study examines how a firm’s specialization in different innovation tasks affects its ability to generate high-value technological innovations. Specifically, we argue that the specialization in invention patent projects contributes to generate high-value innovations through helping firms develop a holistic view about the technology landscape, while specialization in utility model patent projects generates valuable innovations by engaging firms in quick experimentation and adaptation. We further propose that specialization in invention patent projects and in utility model patent projects can complement each other to generate high-value innovations. Finally, we suggest that institutional contexts such as government intervention and technology market development serve as boundary conditions for these two specialization activities’ effects. Our hypotheses are supported by the empirical analysis of Chinese publicly listed firms’ patenting activity during the period of 1999-2011.

The Impact of Transportation Cost on Inventor Mobility and Knowledge Spillovers

We contribute to the understanding of the microfoundations of regional competitive advantage by investigating the flows of human capital and knowledge when the transportation costs across regions are reduced by newly launched airline routes. We construct a dataset of interregional flows of human capital and knowledge between dyads of 362 U.S. mainland MSAs using the U.S. patent and inventor data to the U.S. airline data, from 1990 to 2014. To minimize the endogeneity concerns, we used two-stage linear squares (2SLS) estimation. The results show that the regions experience lower outmigration of inventors and are more active in technological innovation (e.g., the number of patents, the number of patenting firms). However, once we classify the regions as “core” or “periphery” on the basis of their patenting activities, we find that the technologically advanced core gains from lower transportation costs more than the technologically lagging periphery, which is in line with the agglomeration mechanism.