Our study examines whether patent applications with international collaborations are more likely to be awarded a US patent than applications without. The analysis focuses on the population (almost half a million) of patent applications over the period 2001–2009 at the USPTO and disclosed at least one EU located inventor and explicitly distinguish between countries with high and low number of patent applications. There are four important findings. First, inventor teams are more likely to be issued a patent than single inventors. Second, the presence of a US entity, either as inventor or owner, plays an important role in securing the grant. Third, for low innovative countries, international collaborations matter more for the likelihood of securing the patent grant than high innovative countries. Fourth, intense prosecution efforts will result to higher probability of patent grant. This paper adds to the growing literature that examines from the innovator’s viewpoint the likelihood of securing the patent grant.

我们的研究调查了是否有国际合作的专利申请比没有国际合作的专利更有可能获得美国专利。该分析着眼于美国专利商标局在2001年至2009年期间的专利申请总量（近一百万），并披露了至少一名位于欧盟的发明人，并明确区分了专利申请数量高低的国家。有四个重要发现。首先，发明人团队比单一发明人更有可能获得专利。第二，美国实体（无论是发明者还是所有者）的存在在获得资助中起着重要作用。第三，对于创新程度低的国家，国际合作对获得专利授权的可能性的影响要大于创新程度高的国家。第四，强烈的起诉努力将导致更高的专利授权概率。本文增加了越来越多的文献，这些文献从创新者的角度考察了获得专利授权的可能性。