Patent Hunters

Lauren Cohen, Umit Gurun, Katie Moon and Paula Suh

No 32965, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Analyzing millions of patents granted by the USPTO between 1976 and 2020, we find a pattern where specific patents only rise to prominence after considerable time has passed. Amongst these late-blooming influential patents, we show that there are key players (patent hunters) who consistently identify and develop them. Although initially overlooked, these late-blooming patents have significantly more influence on average than early-recognized patents and are associated with significantly more new product launches. Patent hunters, as early detectors and adopters of these late-blooming patents, are also associated with significant positive rents. Their adoption of these overlooked patents is associated with a 6.4% rise in sales growth (t = 3.02), a 2.2% increase in Tobin’s Q (t = 3.91), and a 2.2% increase in new product offerings (t = 2.97). We instrument for patent hunting, and find strong evidence that these benefits are causally due to patent hunting. The rents associated with patent hunting on average exceed those of the original patent creators themselves. Patents hunted are closer to the core technology of patent hunters, more peripheral to writers, and in less competitive spaces. Lastly, patent hunting appears to be a persistent firm characteristic and to have an inventor-level component.

JEL-codes: L1 O31 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-his, nep-ind, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-sbm and nep-tid
Note: CF PR
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w32965.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32965

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w32965
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().