The Government Patent Register: A New Resource for Measuring U.S. Government-Funded Patenting

Daniel Gross and Bhaven Sampat

No 32136, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We introduce new historical administrative data identifying U.S. government-funded patents since the early twentieth century. In addition to the funding agency, the data report whether the government has title to the patent (“title” patents) or funded a patent assigned to a private organization (“license” patents). The data include a large number of “license” patents that cannot be linked to government funding from patent text or other sources. Combining the historical data with modern administrative sources, we present a public, consolidated data series measuring U.S. government-funded patents—including funding agencies—through 2020, and we provide code to extend this series in the future. We use the data to document long-run patterns in U.S. government-funded patents and federal patent policy, propose ways in which these data can be used in future research, and discuss limitations of the data.

JEL-codes: N42 N72 O31 O34 O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-ino, nep-ipr and nep-tid
Note: DAE PR
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Journal Article: The Government Patent Register: A new resource for measuring U.S. government-funded patenting (2025)
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