ABS: Harhoff, Citation frequency and the value of patented inventions

[Gretchen Whitney]

e-mail:  Harhoff not located; Narin is fnarin at chiresearch.com


TITLE:          Citation frequency and the value of patented inventions
AUTHOR:  Harhoff D, Narin F, Scherer FM, Vopel K
JOURNAL  REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
81: (3) 511-515 AUG 1999

 Document type: Article    Language: English    Cited References: 10
Times Cited: 0

Abstract:
Through a survey, private economic value estimates were obtained on 964
inventions made in the United States and Germany and on which German patent
renewal fees were paid to full-term expiration in 1995. A search of
subsequent U.S. and German patents yielded counts of citations to those
patents. Patents renewed to full-term were significantly more highly cited
than patents allowed to expire before their full term. The higher an
invention's economic value estimate was, the more the patent was
subsequently cited.

KeyWords Plus:
INDICATORS

Addresses:
Harhoff D, Univ Munich, D-80539 Munich, Germany.
Univ Munich, D-80539 Munich, Germany.
CHI Res Inc, Southampton, PA 18966 USA.
Harvard Univ, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA.
Ctr European Econ Res, Mannheim, Germany.

Publisher:
M I T PRESS, CAMBRIDGE

IDS Number:
227GQ

ISSN:
0034-6535
Copyright © 1999 Institute for Scientific Information
Please visit their website at www.isinet.com


 Cited Author            Cited Work
Volume      Page      Year

 CABALLERO RJ          NBER MACROECONOMICS                      8
1993
 GRILICHES Z           J ECON LIT
28      1661            1990
 HALL BH               NAT BUR EC RES M MAR
1998
 HARHOFF D             EXPLORING TAIL PATEN
1997
 JAFFE AB              J IND ECON
46       183      1998
 JAFFE AB              NBER REPORTER    SUM
8      1998
 LANJOUW JO            COUNT PATENTS VALUE
1996
 MEDOFF MH             AM ECON
40        46      1996
 NARIN F               SCIENTOMETRICS
34       489      1995
 TRAJTENBERG M         RAND J ECON
21       172      1990

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COMMENTS:
The paper's conclusion is as follows:
"In sum, our results from two surveys, one in Germany and one in the United
States, reveal that patents reported to be relatively valuable by the
companies holding them are more heavily cited in subsequent patents.  Our
evidence suggests at least a two stage relationship between economic values
and citation counts.  First, patents that are renewed to full-term
expiration in environments such as Germany with highly progressive annual
maintenance fees are more highly cited than run-of-the-mill patents allowed
to expire before running to full term.  Other research reveals such
full-term patents to be more valuable on average than patents allowed to
lapse at midterm.  Second, within the relatively select cohort of full-term
patents, citation frequency rises noisily with reported economic value."



ASIS Member Francis Narin (fnarin at chiresearch.com) has co-authored an
interesting study with colleagues from the University of Munich and Harvard
University.  They cite an interesting paper by Zvi Griliches on "Patent
Statistics as Economic Indicators: A Survey" in J. Econ. Lit. 28:1661-1707,
December 1990.




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