American Economic Journal:
Economic Policy
ISSN 1945-7731 (Print) | ISSN 1945-774X (Online)
Disclosure and Subsequent Innovation: Evidence from the Patent Depository Library Program
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
vol. 13,
no. 4, November 2021
(pp. 239–70)
Abstract
How important is access to patent documents for subsequent innovation? We examine the expansion of the USPTO Patent Library system after 1975. Patent libraries provided access to patents before the Internet. We find that after patent library opening, local patenting increases by 8–20 percent relative to similar regions. Additional analyses suggest that disclosure of technical information drives this effect: inventors increasingly take up ideas from outside their region, and the effect is strongest in technologies where patents are more informative. We thus provide evidence that disclosure plays an important role in cumulative innovation.Citation
Furman, Jeffrey L., Markus Nagler, and Martin Watzinger. 2021. "Disclosure and Subsequent Innovation: Evidence from the Patent Depository Library Program." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 13 (4): 239–70. DOI: 10.1257/pol.20180636Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
- K11 Property Law
- O31 Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
- O34 Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital
- R11 Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
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