Accumulated stock of knowledge and current search practices: The impact on patent quality

Antonello Cammarano, Francesca Michelino, Emilia Lamberti and Mauro Caputo

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2017, vol. 120, issue C, 204-222

Abstract: The paper suggests a multidimensional patent-based framework that investigates the relationships among accumulated stock of knowledge, current technological strategies, knowledge search practices and quality of innovation output. More specifically, the work intends to examine how the previous open innovation adoption, the recourse to specific technological strategies, the use of external sources of inspiration and the engagement of external actors for knowledge search affect both the market and the technological value of patented inventions. The methodology is applied to 25,583 patents filed by 68 R&D intense bio-pharmaceutical and technology hardware & equipment companies. Results show that focalization leads to technological acknowledgement and is stimulated by the use of non-patent references as sources of inspiration and the engagement of external scientific actors. In general, the use of patent and non-patent references is positively related to the quality of innovation output. Moreover, when companies have largely employed open innovation to accumulate knowledge, they continue to adopt similar practices in current R&D efforts.

Keywords: Knowledge search; Technological strategy; Open innovation; Stock of knowledge; Sources of knowledge; Patent data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:120:y:2017:i:c:p:204-222

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2016.12.019

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