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While the growth of emerging technologies like Blockchain has created significant market opportunities and economic incentives for firms, it is valuable for both researchers and practitioners to understand their creation mechanisms. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objective.

Based on the knowledge search perspective, this study examines the impact of search boundary on innovation novelty and quality. Additionally, innovation targets, namely R&D innovation and application innovation, are proposed as the moderator of the knowledge search effect. Using a combination of machine learning algorithms such as natural language processing and classification models, the authors propose new methods to measure the identified concepts.

The empirical results of 3,614 Blockchain patents indicate that search boundary enhances both innovation novelty and innovation quality. For R&D innovation, the positive impact of search boundary on innovation quality is enhanced, whereas for application innovation, the positive effect of search boundary on innovation novelty is improved.

This study mainly contributes to the growing literature on emerging technologies by describing their creation mechanisms. Specifically, the exploration of R&D and application taxonomy enriches researchers' understanding of knowledge search in the context of Blockchain invention.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate firm behaviors on patent examination request under the deferred patent examination system in Korea. The authors examine firm decisions on whether and when to request patent examinations when they face both uncertainty about invention’s value and market competition.

The authors provide a simple theoretical model and test a couple of hypothesis using Korea patent data. The authors employ KIPO (Korean intellectual patent office) patent applications data during 2006–2009 and incorporate it with firm financial data retrieved from1 Korea investor service-financial analysis system (KIS-FAS) database in Korea. The authors use the variation in the probability of lapsed patent applications filed in the same year and in the same technology field (at the four-digit IPC class level) of a patent application i as a proxy for the value of uncertainty, and further use one minus a firm’s market share (at the three-digit SIC industry level) as an indicator of the market competition faced by the firm/applicant.

The authors find that the examination requests of firms in Korea have interesting bipolar distribution, and both uncertainty about an invention’s value and market competition have significant impacts on firm’s decision for examination request. Applicants tend to utilize option value of waiting when uncertainty is high, but market competition attenuates the option value: the higher the competition, the less likely applicants are to delay or forego examination.

The authors’ study makes interesting contributions to the literature on the optimal design of the patent system in general and the deferred patent examination request system in particular. By considering the roles of both uncertainty and market competition in firm decisions, it provides a more comprehensive perspective on the deferred patent examination system. The study also provides empirical evidences on the broader research topic regarding firm decision for irreversible investment when faced with both uncertainty and competition, for which a strand of theoretical literature exists but empirical literature is largely limited. This study, which explicitly takes into account uncertainty and market competition, extends this line of empirical literature and fills the gap in the literature.

This study aims to find technologically important patent identification methods and indicators early and efficiently to grasp the technical qualitative level of patents, which are output indicators of research and development (R&D) results.

This paper reports on two methods for distinguishing important patents and the indicators obtained from those methods. One of the discrimination methods is Heckman's two-step estimation procedure. The second method is to find the centrality of each patent by network analysis of the citation relationship between publications and to find the importance from the magnitude of the centrality value.

In Heckman's analysis, the number of citations within three years after publication and the applicant's right acquisition/maintenance motivation index had positive effects on patent importance. The discriminative indicators of important patents by network analysis were degree centrality, mediation centrality, proximity centrality and transit values in the aggregated subnetworks. These two analytical methods are in a relationship that can complement each other's shortcomings. To efficiently evaluate the qualitative importance of patents, it is recommended to use these two methods together.

The indicators of important technical patents might change depending on the technical field. Future studies can apply this research to multiple technical fields to improve robustness and to construct an algorithm that can efficiently evaluate the quality of patents.

This study's results can be useful for grasping the patent position of the company or competitors numerically and for quantitatively evaluating the quality of R&D activities. Furthermore, it is possible to streamline the routine for an exploratory search of a huge number of patents. For example, it could be useful for detecting changes in the paradigm of specific technical knowledge, evolving the genealogy of technical knowledge and creating patent maps for new R&D. These methods greatly increase the effectiveness of technical knowledge information, which is the basis of R&D. In addition, the results of this study can help in evaluating patented assets.

This study confirmed the development process of technical knowledge. It is a fact that sharing, sympathy and mutual trust for technical issues and technical values are created among professional engineers and researchers inside and outside the organization, and their preferences and interactions develop and expand technical knowledge. Understanding the process of development and the evolution of this technical knowledge gives hints, such as expanding the discretionary power of engineers and researchers regarding corporate secrets, or reviewing the balance between control and independence, to solve Japanese management problems, which are often closed and monetized in R&D activities.

This study presents a scoring of the technical significance of patents by combining the two analytical methods. In addition, there are proposals as a method for detecting changes in the genealogy and paradigm of technical knowledge. As an analysis method, it is a new proposal that has never existed before.

In the intellectual property (IP) and management literature, the question of how external patent attorneys impact patent filings has been understudied. The purpose of this paper is to advance this area of research by examining how the use of external patent attorneys influences the patent filing strategies of firms and what impact firms’ level of experience with the exclusive use of in-house resources has on filing strategies. This study, thus, provides insights into the strategic dimension behind patent filing, a process which is affected by patent attorneys’ work and decision-making processes.

The econometric analysis is based on a patent database of 922,553 patents which is combined with an EPO patent database covering applications from 1990 to 2010. The authors test the hypotheses for this study using patent indicators addressing the impact of in-house firm experience vs the use of external patent attorneys on firm’s filing strategy.

This research finds empirical evidence that external patent attorneys’ work has an effect on patent scope, international scope, and patenting speed. Moreover, it can be shown that external patent attorneys have a positive impact on most filing dimensions, such as patent scope, international scope and the Patent Cooperation Treaty option, whereas the level of in-house firm experience has a negative impact on most filing dimensions. This implies that external patent attorneys seem to pursue a “maximization approach” while experienced firms seem to pursue a more differentiated approach to filing patents, for instance, drafting narrower and more focused patents.

The study suggests that effective filing strategies require an integrated approach between diverse IP stakeholders. More particularly, filing strategies should be communicated and aligned between all actors, including external patent attorneys in order to achieve the targeted patenting output.

The current study develops a patent filing typology, which accounts for patent attorneys’ decision options. In providing insights into patent attorneys’ work and their impacts on intellectual property rights management, the study is a useful complement to prior research, which has predominantly focused on applicants or examiners.

The authors argue that the patent term change introduced in Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in the USA inadvertently offered a metric of self-valuation of patents at the time of filing, affirming the ability of Drugs and Chemical patents to offer greater R&D incentives than other technology fields. As renewals also offer a metric of self-valuation, the authors find that upon renewal Computer patents are found to offer greater R&D incentives than Drugs and Chemicals. The purpose of this paper is to inquire as to why Computer patents are considered as more valuable in the post grant period, even though they were not considered as valuable upon filing. The authors advance the idea that patents can increase in value if encompassed in a patent portfolio.

The authors employ the introduction of the TRIPS agreement in the USA. In order to facilitate the move to TRIPS, the USPTO (unexpectedly) allowed applicants who filed prior to June 8, 1995 a patent length that was equal to the maximum of two regimes. Therefore, applicants that filed before the deadline were given a possible small extension of their patent’s time length. The authors use this change and renewal data to infer firms’ self-valuation of patents. For this reason, the authors acquire information for all utility patents that were filed around June 8, 1995 data project.

The authors offer an additional explanation that is related to the increasingly commonplace build up of patent portfolios: patents can increase in value if encompassed in a portfolio. Such portfolios are bundles of patents whose means to an end lays in their strength in numbers. As Lanjouw and Schankerman (2004) note, when a patent is added to a portfolio the cost of defending a technology against infringement allegations decreases. To rephrase, a patent is regarded as the additional foot-soldier who aids the firm, arm-in-arm, in defending its technological territory and in fulfilling its strategic goal.

The originality stemming from the paper is that policy makers that aim to tackle patent proliferation should not focus their attention to individual patents. Instead, they should target policies toward patent portfolios, because they provide the means of endowing patents with the extra weight that makes filing and renewing irrelevant patents worthwhile.

Biomimetics are expected to contribute to sustainable environmental management; however, there has been no exploration of industry perceptions by using empirical data. This study aims to identify the trends and perceptions of biomimetics. The industrial sectors in Japan and international patent application trends are analyzed.

An online survey to identify the perceptions of staff members in Japanese private companies (n = 276) was conducted. Japan is an emerging country in terms of the social implementation of biomimetics, and this paper can provide insights into other such countries.

It is identified that the strength of connections to biomimetics differs across industrial sectors. The respondents from companies that use nanoscale biomimetics tend to have the knowledge of, and experience in, biomimetics. Regarding the overall understanding of patent applications, Japanese private company employees require knowledge of patent application trends and country rankings as potential factors influencing the development of biomimetics.

Knowledge transfer and sharing of experience among engineers and researchers of nanoscale technologies and urban scales are necessary to facilitate biomimetic advancement.

The results of the first survey and an analysis of the perceptions of staff members in private companies in Japan are provided to show the challenges in the social implementation of biomimetics. The results can be referred to for the social implementation of biomimetics in emerging countries. The method of this study can be applied to an international comparative analysis in future research.

Of significance for patents information during the past decade or so have been the major changes in patents legislation, improvements to the publications of the principal patenting systems, and the transforming effects of computerized databases. The review covers these changes and outlines the current publication procedures of the European Patent Convention, Patent Cooperation Treaty, and the major national systems. The importance of the patent specification as a source of information, and developments during this period in its construction and bibliographic data are explained. Official and non‐official publications associated with the specification are covered. Particular emphasis is given to computer databases covering patents, since they now form a powerful, numerous and growing means of searching specifications in the majority of subject fields. Reference is made to efforts to increase general awareness of the value of patents as information and to improve their availability by schemes such as the UK's Patents Information Network.

Previous studies employing the behavioral theory of the firm have not explicitly taken the roles of decision makers and corporate governance into consideration. The purpose of this paper is to fill in this gap by integrating CEO overconfidence and discretion into the performance feedback mechanism.

Financial data were collected from 1,730 Chinese listed companies in the period 2011–2015. Firm-level patent application data were collected for 1988–2015 to measure firm patent application rhythm. Hypothesis testing relied on the fixed effect panel data model.

There is a positive relationship between performance discrepancy and a firm’s patent application rhythm. CEO overconfidence will weaken this positive relationship. The negative moderating effect of CEO overconfidence will be less pronounced when CEO discretion is high.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first empirical study that investigates the roles of CEO overconfidence and discretion in shaping the performance feedback mechanism.

Discusses the basic concepts of intellectual property, particularly as applied to patents; explains the monopoly granted to inventors in return for disclosing details of their inventions in applications for patent specifications. Expands on the problems such a system presents to the inventor, with comments on decisions the inventor must take on whether to patent his invention, and if so, where, and how the procedures should be approached. Presents a brief history of patents, with an explanation of what can and what cannot be patented under the Patents Act 1977. Notes arrangements for protection outside the UK ‐ through the European Patent Office, and other countries of the world. Discusses the main factors which affect the information value of patents, and comments on the major patent information tools ‐ printed, CD‐ROM and databases. Concludes with a brief discussion on the growing impact of the Internet and the World Wide Web, suggesting that such developments might increase the use of the valuable information contained in patent documentation.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the patenting activity of the Brazilian academic sector vis-à-vis the domestic business sector, taking into account the recent evolution of Brazil’s industrial policies. The paper differentiates between “university academic patents”, which are owned by the universities, and “non-university academic patents”, which despite being invented by academic staff are not owned by the universities.

The authors’ cross-checked information regarding the names of all inventors with Brazilian addresses in PCT patent applications in the Espacenet database with the names of researchers in the CVs available on the Lattes Platform of CNPq. The analysis specifically focussed on patent applications published in the PCT with Brazilian priority for the 2002-2012 period.

It was found that the Brazilian academic patents concentrate on science-based technology areas, especially in the Pharma Biotechnology domain. For a total of 466 patent applications with Brazilian priority in this field, 233 have academic inventors. Of those 233 academic applications, 66.1 per cent have universities as their owners, while the remaining 33.9 per cent are not owned by universities. Further, it was found that there are more Brazilian academic patents in the biotechnology sub-domain than those filed by the business sector.

This research was based on the intersection of patent databases and the content available on the official curriculum base of Brazil (Lattes Platform, CNPq). Once the curricula information are voluntary, there are risks inherent reliability of this information.

This study allows us to identify more accurately which is the effective role of the Brazilian Academy in patents generation, revealing that a significant unaccounted deposits with personal inventors or companies’ ownership really have a academic contribution.

This paper shows that the academic sector plays a key role in Brazil’s international patenting activity, particularly in science-intensive technology domains, and it highlights the specific contribution of academic patents not owned by universities.

Este trabalho apresenta a análise da atividade de patenteamento do setor acadêmico brasileiro considerando a recente evolução das políticas de promoção da inovação no Brasil. O artigo tem como base a diferenciação necessária entre “patentes acadêmicas universitárias”, que são patentes/depósitos cujos requerentes são as universidades, e as “patentes acadêmicas não-universitárias” que, apesar de ser inventadas por docentes da academia, não têm as universidades como requerentes dos depósitos.

Foram cruzadas informações de todos os inventores constantes nos pedidos de patentes de origem brasileira realizados pela via PCT, com os nomes dos pesquisadores com currículos disponíveis na Plataforma Lattes do CNPq. A análise incidiu sobre pedidos de patentes publicado na via do PCT com prioridade brasileira para o período 2002-2012 contidos no banco de dados do Espacenet.

Verificou-se que as patentes acadêmicas brasileiras se concentram em áreas mais tecnológicas, especialmente no domínio de Farmácia-Biotecnologia. Para um total de 466 pedidos de patentes com prioridade brasileiros neste setor, 233 tinham inventores acadêmicos. Destes 233 pedidos acadêmicos, 66.1% têm suas universidades como titulares ou co-titulares, enquanto os restantes 33.9% não são de propriedade das universidades. Verificou-se ainda que existem mais patentes no sub-domínio de biotecnologia depositadas pelo setor acadêmico brasileiro do que aquelas requeridas pelo setor empresarial privado.

Neste artigo, demonstrou que a academia desempenha um papel ainda mais expressivo na atividade de patenteamento internacional do Brasil, particularmente em domínios de tecnologia intensivos em ciência, e destaca a contribuição específica das “patentes acadêmicas não-universitárias”, que possuem origem lastreada pelos pesquisadores da academia.