What makes the first forward citation of a patent occur earlier?

Jungpyo Lee and So Young Sohn ()
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Jungpyo Lee: Yonsei University
So Young Sohn: Yonsei University

Scientometrics, 2017, vol. 113, issue 1, No 14, 279-298

Abstract: Abstract Identifying the economic value of a patent is crucial to technology management. It also facilitates the commercialization and transactions of patents. As a proxy of patent value, forward citation counting is widely used, but it takes a long time for a patent to be sufficiently cited. In this context, we suggest the first citation lag, namely the time taken until the first citation, as a proxy of patent value, as it is positively correlated with the patent value and considers the fact that important patents with a high economic value tend to receive many citations in a short space of time. We explore the influential patent attributes related to the first citation lag to build a model to predict the patent value. By using the Cox proportional hazard model on green inventory patent data, we find that patents with a shorter technology cycle time and a larger number of IPC four-digit classes, claims, patent family, and backward citations are associated with the shorter first citation lag, while a patent’s science linkage has an inverse U-shaped relationship with the first citation lag. Further, patents having an unconventional technological core have a longer first citation lag and among patents having an unconventional technological core, the presence of a novel element makes the first citation earlier. Our study is expected to help patent evaluation in the early stage of technology transfer.

Keywords: Patent value; First citation; Short-term value; Survival analysis; Novelty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C10 O30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11192-017-2480-1

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