Abstract

Competition between firms to invent and patent an idea, or “patent racing,” has been much discussed in theory, but seldom analyzed empirically and never at scale. This article introduces an empirical way to identify patent races, and provides the first broad-based view of them in the real world. It reveals that patent races are common, particularly in information-technology fields. The article then analyzes the effect of winning a patent race, showing that patent race winners do significantly more follow-on innovation, and their follow-on research is more similar to what was covered by the patent.(JEL CODES: O34, O32, O31)

中文翻译：

---

赢得专利竞赛是否会带来更多后续创新？

摘要

理论上已经对公司之间为发明和授予专利权（即“专利竞赛”）之间的竞争进行了很多讨论，但很少从经验上进行分析，而且从未进行过大规模的分析。本文介绍了一种识别专利竞赛的经验方法，并提供了在现实世界中对专利竞赛的第一个广泛依据。它揭示了专利竞赛是普遍的，特别是在信息技术领域。然后，该文章分析了赢得专利竞赛的影响，表明专利竞赛获胜者进行了更多的后续创新，他们的后续研究与专利所涵盖的研究更加相似。（JEL CODES：O34，O32， O31）