Quantity Of Patents Research Articles

Quantity or quality? The impact assessment of environmental regulation on green innovation

As technological progress aimed at realizing resource conservation and environmental protection, green technology innovation provides an important nudge for sustainable development. Is the Porter Hypothesis valid in China's environmental system? This paper's focus centers on the Clean Air Action Plan, the paradigmatic environmental regulation in China. Based on the patent data and classification, China's green innovation activities are measured from the two dimensions of quantity and quality. Using the regression control method, this paper assessed the policy effect of the Clean Air Action Plan on green technology innovation by constructing a counterfactual framework. The empirical findings indicate that environmental regulation has positively stimulated green innovation activities. However, regarding both statistics and economic magnitude, the positive impact on patent quality is significantly smaller than on patent quantity. Further analysis shows that policy effect is heterogeneous in different scopes: the quantitative and qualitative improvement is only embodied in green patents of waste management, which implies that innovation is concentrated on end-of-pipe treatment, with a pronounced path dependence in green innovation. This paper provides new micro-level evidence and theoretical support for exploring pathways to green transformation.

The effect of employee mobility on firm innovation

AbstractWe study the effect of employee mobility on firm innovation. Using an occupation‐based measure of employee mobility, we find that firms with more mobile workforces are associated with greater patent quantity and quality and higher innovation efficiency. This effect is more pronounced for firms with higher labor intensity, greater business diversification, and lower unionization rates. Both the private market value of innovation and the effectiveness of innovation to generate revenues increase with higher employee mobility. Consistent results are found using a quasi‐experimental shock, which helps address endogeneity concerns. Our findings suggest that employee mobility has a profound impact on innovation.

Innovation’s false spring: U.S. export controls and Chinese patent quality

This paper evaluates the effect of U.S. export restrictions, enacted in 2018, on China’s patent production. An analysis of patent-level datasets indicates a significant surge in Chinese patent filings in sanctioned technological domains. This quantitative growth, however, is accompanied by a decrease in patent quality, evidenced by reduced citation counts and market worth. Specifically, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have witnessed a substantial rise in patent filings post-2018, while private firms exhibit a more modest increase. Despite the surge in patent quantity, the overall quality of patents—particularly those originating from SOEs—has deteriorated significantly. This study contributes to the body of research concerning the economic consequences of the US-China trade dispute and offers original insights into the implications of trade sanctions on innovation quality.

Rethinking the trade-off relationship between innovation quantity and quality: the evidence from public energy R&D programs in South Korea

This study examines the relationship between quantitative and qualitative aspect of innovation in South Korea’s public energy research and development programs. Through an analysis of 1170 projects, the study confirms a complementary association between the quantity and quality of patents. The findings underscore the importance of a strategic approach to managing innovation, challenging the notion of a trade-off and advocating balance. It also discusses how this relationship varies across technological fields. This emphasizes the need to consider moderating variables in future research on this domain. This study thus not only contributes theoretically by expanding the discourse on innovation dynamics but also offers practical insights for policymakers and industry practitioners.

Environmental protection tax and enterprises’ green technology innovation: Evidence from China

The Environmental Protection Tax Law was officially implemented, marking the initial establishment of China's green tax system. This paper aims to estimate whether the introduction of environmental protection tax will promote enterprises' green technology innovation. Based on data from listed enterprises from 2015 to 2021, this paper takes the implementation of environmental protection tax in 2018 as a quasi-natural experiment, and uses the DID method to evaluate the impact of the implementation of environmental protection tax on the technological innovation ability of enterprises. The results show that, after the implementation of environmental protection tax, the quantity of green patents increased significantly, while the quality of green patents decreased significantly. The analysis of mechanism channel reveals that environmental protection tax policy appears to increase the number of green patents putting regulatory pressure on enterprises and increasing R&D investment, while managerial myopia inhibits the improvement of green patent quality. The changes in the quantity and quality of green patents in large enterprises are more significant. It is also found that the quantity in coastal areas decreased significantly, while the quantity in inland areas markedly increased.

In the mood for creativity: Sunshine-induced mood, inventor performance, and firm value

We investigate how firm value may be related to emotional and mental states of innovative workers via the innovation channel. By analyzing a comprehensive inventor-level dataset, we discover that the economic value inventors produce for their firms through their patenting activity is positively associated with their sunshine-induced mood. This augmentation in patent value is not due to a surge in the quantity of patents, but rather to the heightened significance and influence of the created inventions. These inventor-level observations aggregate to the firm level. The observed sunshine-enhanced effect is of a magnitude comparable to other primary behavioral drivers of innovation outcomes, such as CEO overconfidence and CEO thrill-seeking tendencies. Our research underscores the significance of the emotional and psychological states of innovative personnel that has implications for managers and shaerholders.

Personal income tax and corporate innovation: The key role of inventors’ financial incentives

Despite the importance of the personal income tax around the world, little is known about its impact on innovation. We construct a large database of inventors who patented at publicly listed companies during the 2008–2016 period and exploit the revised Personal Income Tax (PIT) Law of 2011 in China as a quasi-natural experiment to establish the causal effect of the personal income tax on corporate innovation. Using a difference-in-differences identification strategy, we show that a lower personal income tax rate has a significantly positive impact on patent quantity and quality. Further, the revised PIT Law raises the efficiency of R&D activities, induces more explorative innovation, and improves the success rate of patent applications, providing consistent evidence for the intentional effort channel. Moreover, this positive innovation effect is more pronounced in firms with an R&D team that is more sensitive to the salary incentive system, greater innovation dependence, better governance, and firms located in regions with better innovation environments. Taken together, our findings shed light on how inventors and firms respond to decreasing personal income tax rates and confirm that the net return to innovation can be vital to the innovation capacity of firms.

The global patent landscape of emerging infectious disease monkeypox.

Monkeypox is an emerging infectious disease with confirmed cases and deaths in several parts of the world. In light of this crisis, this study aims to analyze the global knowledge pattern of monkeypox-related patents and explore current trends and future technical directions in the medical development of monkeypox to inform research and policy. A comprehensive study of 1,791 monkeypox-related patents worldwide was conducted using the Derwent patent database by descriptive statistics, social network method and linear regression analysis. Since the 21st century, the number of monkeypox-related patents has increased rapidly, accompanied by increases in collaboration between commercial and academic patentees. Enterprises contributed the most in patent quantity, whereas the initial milestone patent was filed by academia. The core developments of technology related to the monkeypox include biological and chemical medicine. The innovations of vaccines and virus testing lack sufficient patent support in portfolios. Monkeypox-related therapeutic innovation is geographically limited with strong international intellectual property right barriers though it has increased rapidly in recent years. The transparent licensing of patent knowledge is driven by the merger and acquisition model, and the venture capital, intellectual property and contract research organization model. Currently, the patent thicket phenomenon in the monkeypox field may slow the progress of efforts to combat monkeypox. Enterprises should pay more attention to the sharing of technical knowledge, make full use of drug repurposing strategies, and promote innovation of monkeypox-related technology in hotspots of antivirals (such as tecovirimat, cidofovir, brincidofovir), vaccines (JYNNEOS, ACAM2000), herbal medicine and gene therapy.

Green R & D investment, ESG reporting, and corporate green innovation performance.

Given the contradictory empirical evidence on the relationship between green R&D expenditure and corporate Green Innovation performance (GIP), The present research study is a distinctive investigation into the moderating impacts of ESG reporting on this relationship. We utilized a data collection of 3,846, firm-year observations of A-share listed firms in China from 2016 to 2022 from CSMAR and Bloomberg databases. The firm's Corporate GIP is assessed and measured by looking at the total quantity of green patents. Lastly, models with multiple regression analyses and fixed effects were employed. The findings show that ESG reporting has a positive and significant impact on the association between corporate GIP and green R&D expenditure, implying its compensating and supportive function in the form of green signals in green outputs. This research could help executives and lawmakers, especially in developing countries to build innovative environmental strategies for business sustainability.

Impact analysis of bilateral trade openness and income inequality based on the system GMM method: A case study of transnational dynamic panel data

To analyze the impact of bilateral trade openness on income inequality, the study selected 16 countries with the highest global import and export trade rankings as research subjects, combined with cross-border dynamic panel data from 2005 to 2020, and used the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) to analyze the dynamic impact of natural and policy factors on domestic income inequality in the process of deepening bilateral trade openness. Empirical research has found that the policy-oriented expansion of openness in 16 countries has an inhibitory effect on domestic income inequality, while natural openness is influenced, to varying degrees, by different trading partners. High-quality education and sound infrastructure can help regulate income inequality. The results indicate that policy-based openness between 16 countries and those with weaker technological output, i.e., patent quantity, education level, i.e., higher education, and immigration, can suppress domestic income inequality, which is consistent with the expected hypothesis of the impact mechanism. The results indicate that in-depth research on the relationship between trade openness and income inequality can provide a basis for policymakers to adjust trade policies and provide recommendations to reduce income inequality. Meanwhile, the results and methods of this study can provide references for other scholars and promote research progress in related fields.

Human capital in the financial sector and corporate innovation: Evidence from China

This paper investigates how human capital in the financial sector affects corporate innovation. Based on China's National Economic Census in 2008, we construct a measure of the financial sector's human capital across prefecture-level cities and then match the data with nonfinancial listed firms over 2009–2017. We find that human capital in the financial sector plays a significant and positive role in firms' patent quantity and quality; this effect is more pronounced for firms with higher R&D intensity, more serious financial constraints, lower industry competition and those located in regions with lower bank density and lower marketization levels. Furthermore, the mechanism tests show that debt issuance and R&D investment increase as more highly educated workers flow into the financial sector, while the cost of debt and the cash flow sensitivity of fixed assets investment decrease, consistent with the credit constraints channel. Our findings argue that increasing human capital in the financial sector does not impede corporate innovation but strengthens corporate innovation by reducing the information asymmetry between the financial and productive sectors.

The Impact of Scientific Research Level on Financing for High-tech Enterprises in China: Machine Learning Analysis Based on the STAR Market

Amid the prevailing trend of technological supremacy, the scientific research level plays a pivotal role in elevating economic growth and national comprehensive strength. As crucial forces propelling industrial advancement and economic expansion, high-tech companies share an intricate relationship between scientific research level and enterprise strengths. This study delves into the influence of research level on the financing capacity of enterprises in the STAR market. It employs Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression and Gradient Boosting Regression Trees (GBRT) techniques to analyze data between 2019 and 2022. The findings underscore that patent research capabilities and research investment intensity are key factors impacting financing capacity. Specifically, patent quantity exhibits a negative correlation with Asset-liability ratio (ALR), while research investment intensity shows a positive correlation. On the other hand, patent quantity correlates positively with commercial credit financing (CCF) capacity, whereas the proportion of research personnel correlates negatively. The GBRT analysis further validates the significant impact which patent quantity and research investment have on financing capacity. This suggests that high-tech companies should focus on enhancing research efficiency and the proportion of research personnel, while also carefully considering the degree of emphasis on innovation. These measures can balance CCF and debt ratio considerations. The study provides essential decision-making insights for managers and investors of technology-driven firms, emphasizing the significance of technological innovation in business development. Also, it offers guidance for optimizing corporate development and personnel structures in the technology and innovation sectors.

How Do Heterogeneous Networks Affect a Firm's Innovation Performance? A Research Analysis Based on Clustering and Classification.

Based on authorized patents of China's artificial intelligence industry from 2013 to 2022, this paper constructs an Industry-University-Research institution (IUR) collaboration network and an Inter-Firm (IF) collaboration network and used the entropy weight method to take both the quantity and quality of patents into account to calculate the innovation performance of firms. Through the hierarchical clustering algorithm and classification and regression trees (CART) algorithm, in-depth analysis has been conducted on the intricate non-linear influence mechanisms between multiple variables and a firm's innovation performance. The findings indicate the following: (1) Based on the network centrality (NC), structural hole (SH), collaboration breadth (CB), and collaboration depth (CD) of both IUR and IF collaboration networks, two types of focal firms are identified. (2) For different types of focal firms, the combinations of network characteristics affecting their innovation performance are various. (3) In the IUR collaboration network, focal firms with a wide range of heterogeneous collaborative partners can obtain high innovation performance. However, focal firms in the IF collaboration network can achieve the same aim by maintaining deep collaboration with other focal firms. This paper not only helps firms make scientific decisions for development but also provides valuable suggestions for government policymakers.

Game Analysis of Different Source Disclosure Model for Genetic Resources and Implications for China

Inventions that rely on genetic resources are subject to different source disclosure models in the domestic laws of different countries. Different source disclosure models can indirectly affect the quantity and quality of patents issued in a country, thus resulting in different social benefits. Therefore, an analysis of which source disclosure model is applicable to the patent protection of genetic resources is of great importance. The economic approach of game theory is used to analyse the game of interests between patent applicants and the patent examination authority. It is found that the patent examination authority is required to introduce source disclosure rules and that the optimal equilibrium for patent applications can be achieved by requiring companies to comply with a voluntary source disclosure model under intense examination pressure. Based on this, the legislative policies of typical resource-rich countries are selected for analysis to verify the validity of the game conclusions. Finally, policy recommendations for source disclosure requirements for genetic resources in China are proposed based on the game conclusions. genetic resources, source disclosure, patent law, game theory, mandatory model, voluntary model, patent applications, regulatory bodies, cost-benefit perspective

Impacts of population aging on the quantity and quality of pharmaceutical innovation: evidence from OECD countries

ABSTRACT Against the backdrop of rapid population aging, we examine the impacts of population aging on pharmaceutical innovation based on the panel data of OECD countries between 1997 and 2018. We show that population aging effectively boosts the quantity and quality of pharmaceutical innovation before the share of older adults approaches 14%, the threshold for the aged society. Once the country enters the aged society, however, population aging is no longer associated with the quantity of pharmaceutical patents, and even significantly depresses the quality of patenting. Moreover, the type of welfare state regimes plays a notable moderating role. High welfare states could effectively amplify the positive effects of aging or attenuate the negative impacts of aging on pharmaceutical innovation. Our results suggest that the dividend of aging in pharmaceutical industry does exist in the early stage of aging, and the government needs to plan ahead to ameliorate the deterioration of innovation in aged and super-aged societies.

Does Extended Producer Responsibility System Promote Green Technological Innovation in China’s Power Battery Enterprises?

In an effort to accelerate the advancement of green and low-carbon development, China introduced the extended producer responsibility (EPR) system in 2016, mandating producers to assume responsibility for waste recycling. Notably, power battery enterprises emerged as a primary focal point within the EPR system. Consequently, the interplay between this system and the green technological innovation of enterprises has a substantial impact on the sustainable development of power battery companies. To comprehensively explore this relationship, we conducted an empirical investigation utilizing a sample comprising listed power battery enterprises in China from 2010 to 2020. Employing the difference-in-difference (DID) model, this study aims to analyze the implications of the EPR system on green technological innovation within these enterprises. The results indicate that: (1) The EPR system significantly promotes green technological innovation in power battery enterprises, leading to an increase in the quantity of green invention patents and improvement in the quality of green patents. (2) The mechanism test reveals that the EPR system can stimulate green innovation in power battery enterprises by increasing government subsidies and raising executives’ environmental awareness. The future endeavors aimed at promoting green innovation in power battery enterprises should be concentrated on four key aspects: (1) Expanding and optimizing the implementation of the EPR system to encompass a broader spectrum of enterprises. (2) Developing precise subsidy mechanisms in conjunction with the EPR system to effectively offset recycling costs and provide incentives for fostering green innovation within power battery enterprises. (3) Encouraging proactive engagement of power battery enterprises in strategic self-reform to align with the EPR system requirements and formulate comprehensive green technology innovation strategies. (4) Enhancing the awareness of innovation among executives to accelerate the development and advancement of green products. By focusing on these four crucial dimensions, the promotion of green innovation in power battery enterprises can be strategically and efficiently pursued, thus contributing to the sustainable development of the sector.

The Scope of Software Patent Protection in the Digital Age: Evidence from Alice

Previous studies on software patents using data from the 1990s and early 2000s found a positive association between strong patent rights and sales within the software industry. Our research expands on this work in three ways. First, we consider more recent data from 2010 to 2018, which better represent the advancements in digitalization. Second, we shift our focus to the breadth of software patent protection rather than the quantity of patents held by a firm. Third, we provide evidence showing increased open-source involvement and sales for software firms when software patent protection is more limited. Put simply, a more restricted scope of software patent protection could foster a beneficial situation for both software firms and society. Despite less reliance on formal patent protection, companies can still generate and profit from their innovations without excluding societal members from utilizing these advancements. This “less-is-more” approach may extend to a wider array of software-related innovations, including but not limited to artificial intelligence, blockchain, and other emerging digital technologies.

The power of paper: Scientific disclosure and firm innovation

This research investigates the relationship between scientific disclosure and innovation in Chinese listed firms from 2006 to 2018. Our findings indicate a positive correlation between scientific disclosure and both the quantity and quality of a firm's patents. Scientific disclosure enhances innovation by enhancing market credibility, pursuing standards, and attracting high-quality talent. The positive impact of scientific disclosure is particularly notable in firms with high levels of knowledge and R&D density, as well as those with independent central research institutes and state-owned enterprises. Overall, our investigation emphasizes the crucial significance of scientific disclosure in promoting innovation in emerging markets.

Innovation under debtor-friendly institutional policy: Strategic patenting perspective of Chinese listed firms

Drawing on insights from the strategic patenting perspective, we examine the impact of debtor-friendly institutional policy on the innovation behavior of firms. We argue that while conventional wisdom indicates the negative impact of debt on patent counts, debt financing based on a set of weak creditor rights may lead firms to apply for more patents at the expense of the innovativeness of those patents. By analyzing financial data and patenting information of the Chinese listed firms, we show that debt financing motivates firms to apply for more patents while both R&D intensity and the portion of innovative patent applications diminish. These effects are more pronounced among firms more adversely exposed to China's debtor-friendly institutional policy. Our paper extends the scope of innovation financing studies by demonstrating that firms behave strategically in the context of state policies, in this case by privileging patent quantity over quality.

Impact mechanism of environmental protection tax policy on enterprises' green technology innovation with quantity and quality from the micro-enterprise perspective.

Promoting green technology innovation through environmental tax is an important tool to achieve green development. Based on the data of Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2020, this research examines the impact mechanisms of environmental tax policies on the quality and quantity of enterprise green technology innovation from the micro-enterprise perspective. The underlying mechanisms and heterogeneous effects were analyzed empirically using pooled OLS model and the mediated effects model. The results indicate that the environmental tax policy has an inhibitory effect on the quantity and quality of green patents, and the impact on the quantity is more significant. The mechanism analysis suggests that the environmental tax inhibits green technology innovation via accelerating capital renewal and environmental investment. Heterogeneity analysis shows that environmental tax has an inhibitory effect on green technology innovation behavior of large-scale enterprises and eastern region enterprises, while it has a boosting effect on green technology innovation of western region enterprises, and its effect on quantity of innovation is greater than that on quality. This study helps Chinese enterprises to better achieve green development from the perspective of green taxation and provides important empirical basis for achieving the win-win goal of economic growth and environmental development.