Around the world, knowledge and technology transfer have moved to the forefront of attention in economic, social and industrial policy. As the origins of future development increasingly derives from innovation, attention is paid more and more to non-traditional sources that have the potential to become the basis for creation of new businesses or the catalyser for the rejuvenation of old ones. Among those sources, we find university. These last years, academic patents have been one of the emerging phenomena witnessing the growing evolvement of university in the innovation process. The aim of this doctoral dissertation is to analyse the transfer of technology from university to industry through the analysis of patents. This work pursuits a threefold approach. First, it intends to analyse which characteristics determine the propensity of a university to get involved in technology transfer and more specifically to apply for a patent. Second, it disentangles the underlining value determinants of the patents to decode the value of academic patents and to identify the research processes that are leading to the most valuable inventions. Finally, it investigates the relevancy of academic patenting for innovation in general and wonders if on the long run, such practices could put innovation at risk.

Patents have become a direct source of revenue, apart from providing legal protections for inventions. A patent generates revenue in its patented form through licensing or sell-out. Three challenges confront this shift in use of patents as direct revenue generators especially in the context of patent sale. First, the challenge of estimating the price a patent fetches in a sale (referred as ‗patent value‘) remains scarcely addressed owing to the intangible nature of patents and lack of patent sale data in public domain. Secondly, the variations in price and the method used to estimate the price while selling a patent individually (called as a singleton) or in a group along with other patents (called as portfolio) are little understood. Thirdly, literature focus so far has been on the static dimensions of patent value determinants leaving scope for researching the time varying dynamic nature of potential value determinants. This thesis aims to systematically address the above challenges and research gaps through five specific research objectives pertaining to the following four aspects of patent sale: (1) Successful sale aspect of patent lots in an auction (Research objective 1) Research objective 1: To explore the determinants of successful sale of singletons and portfolios. (2) Selling strategy aspect of the sold patents (Research objective 2) Research objective 2: To characterize the singleton and portfolio patent lots successfully sold in an auction. (3) Time dynamic aspect of factors influencing price (Research objectives 3 & 4) Research objective 3: To investigate the effect of time dynamic nature of patent age on the selling prices of singletons and portfolios. Research objective 4: To understand the effect of time dynamic trend of technological importance (TI) and patent class trend on selling prices of singletons and portfolios. (4) Valuation aspect (Research objective 5) Research objective 5: To identify the determinants of selling prices of singletons and portfolios. In this thesis, we use a combination of patent bibliometric and market based approach to study various aspects of singleton and portfolio patent sale incorporating the time dynamic aspect. A set of US patents auctioned by an US auction firm, called Ocean Tomo, is used as sample. The sample was dominated by patents from Computer & Communication field. The research findings showed significant differences in the characteristics of sold and unsold lots both in the case of singletons and portfolios. Amongst the sold lots, singletons were found to include more novel (lesser patent backward citations) and technology specific (higher C&C technology scope) patents than the portfolios sold. Further investigation on the variation in selling prices fetched by singletons and portfolios showed portfolios fetching significantly higher prices than singletons at the lot level. Interestingly, at a granular level, the equation reversed with singletons showing significantly higher price compared to the average price per individual US patent member within the portfolio. Along the time dynamic aspect, the existence of an optimal age to sell patents for higher prices is evidenced especially in the case of singletons from C&C technology field. The optimal age was found to be around 10 year 2 months of age from grant of singletons. No such optimal age was identified for portfolios. The growth trend analysis of the forward citations (technological importance of patent) and the patent applications filed within the specific patent class of a patent (attractiveness of patent class) illustrated the significance of the patent class trend in explaining variation in selling price of singletons. Finally, the valuation models of singletons and portfolios showed singletons being valued more on the patent related characteristics unlike portfolios which were valued based on the all three aspects – patent, seller and bundling. In summary, the novelty of the thesis resides in the (1) incorporation of new set of variables namely forward citation diversity, forward citations trend, patent class trend, technology scope and portfolio type in understanding patent price (2) treatment of time dynamic variables in understanding patent value and (3) focus on portfolio analysis through independent analysis of singleton and portfolio selling prices.

1. The context: The European patent system has been affected by substantial changes over the past three decades, which have raised vigorous debates at different levels. The main objective of the present dissertation is to contribute to these debates through an exploratory analysis of different changes in patenting practices – in particular the way applications are drafted and filed to patent offices –, their drivers, association with the value of patents, and potential impact on the patent system. The coming essays are therefore empirical in their essence, but are inspired by economic motivations and concerns. Their originality is threefold: it resides in the novelty of the main questions discussed, the comprehensive database specifically built to address them, and the range of statistical methods used for this purpose. The main argument throughout these pages is that patenting practices have significantly evolved in the past decades and that these developments have affected the patent system and could compromise its ability to fulfil its economic purpose. The economic objective of patents is to encourage innovation and its diffusion through the public disclosure of the inventions made. But their exploitation in the knowledge economy has assumed so many different forms that inventors have supposedly developed new patenting and filing strategies to deal with these market conditions or reap the maximum benefits from their patents. The present thesis aims at better understanding the dimensions, determinants, and some potential consequences of these developing practices. 2. The evolution: Chapter 2 presents a detailed descriptive analysis of the evolution in the size of patent applications filed to the European Patent Office (EPO). In this chapter, we propose two measures of patent voluminosity and identify the main patterns in their evolution. Based on a dataset with about 2 million documents filed at the EPO, the results show that the average voluminosity of patent applications – measured in terms of the number of pages and claims contained in each document – has doubled over the past 25 years. Nevertheless, this evolution varies widely across countries, technologies and filing procedures chosen by the applicant. This increasing voluminosity of filings has a strong impact on the workload of the EPO, which justifies the need for regulatory and policy actions. 3. The drivers: The evolution in patent voluminosity observed in chapter 2 calls for a multivariate analysis of its determinants. Chapter 3 therefore proposes and tests 4 different hypotheses that may contribute to explaining the observed inflation in size: the influence of national laws and practices and their diffusion to other countries with the progressive globalization of patenting procedures, the complexification of research activities and inventions, the emergence of new sectors with less established norms and vocabularies, and the construction of patent portfolios. The econometric results first reveal that the four hypotheses are significantly associated with longer documents and are therefore empirically supported. It appears however that the first hypothesis – the diffusion of national drafting practices through international patenting procedures – is the strongest contributor of all, resulting in a progressive harmonization of drafting styles toward American standards, which are longer by nature. The portfolio construction hypothesis seems a less important driver but nevertheless highlights substantial changes in patenting practices. These results raise two questions: Do these evolving patenting practices indicate more valuable patents? Do they induce any embarrassment for the patent system? 4. Measuring patent value: If the former of these two questions is to be addressed, measures are needed to identify higher value patents. Chapter 4 therefore proposes a review of the state of the art on patent value indicators and analyses several issues in their measurement and interpretation. Five classes of indicators proposed in the literature may be obtained directly from patent databases: the number of countries in which each patent is enforced, the number of years during which each patent has been renewed, the grant decision taken, the number of citations received from subsequent patents, and whether it has been opposed by a third party before the EPO. Because the former two measures are closely connected (the geographical scope of protection and length of maintenance can hardly be observed independently), they have been subjected to closer scrutiny in the first section of chapter 4, which shows that these two dimensions have experienced opposite evolutions. A composite measure – the Scope-Year Index – reveals that the overall trend is oriented downwards, which may suggest a substantial decline in the average value of patents. The second section of chapter 4 returns to the five initial classes of measures and underlines their main patterns. It appears that most of them witness the well-known properties of patent value: a severe skewness and large country and technology variations. A closer look at their relationships, however, reveals a high degree of orthogonality between them and opposite trends in their evolution, suggesting that they actually capture different dimensions of a patent’s value and therefore do not always pinpoint the same patents as being the most valuable. This result strongly discourages the reliance on one of the available indicators only and opens some avenue for the creation of one potential composite index of value based upon the five indicators to maximize the chances of capturing all potentially valuable patents in a large database. The proposed index reflects the intensity of the signal provided by all 5 constituting indicators on the potential value of each patent. Its declining trend reflects a rarefaction of this signal on average, leading to different plausible interpretations. 5. The links with patent value: Based upon the six indicators of value proposed in chapter 4 (the five classical ones plus the composite), the question of the association between filing strategies and the value of patents may be analysed. This question is empirically addressed in chapter 5, which focuses on all EPO patents filed between 1990 and 1995. The first section presents a comprehensive review of the existing evidence on the determinants of patent value. The numerous contributions in the field differ widely along three dimensions (the indicator of value chosen as dependent variable, the sampling methodology, and the set of variables tested as determinants), which have translated into many ambiguities across the literature. Section 2 proposes measures to identify different dimensions of filing strategies, which are essentially twofold: they relate to the routes followed by patent filings toward the EPO (PCT, accelerated processing), and to their form (excess claims, share of claims lost in examination), and construction (by assembly or disassembly, divisional). These measures are then included into an econometric model based upon the framework provided by the literature. The proposed model, which integrates the set of filing strategy variables along with some of the classical determinants, is regressed on the six available indicators separately over the full sample. In addition, the sensitivity of the available results to the indicator and the sampling methodology is assessed through 18 geographic and 14 industrial clustered regressions and about 30 regressions over random samples for each indicator. The estimates are then compared across countries, industries and indicators. These results first reveal that filing strategies are indicative of more valuable patents and provide the most stable determinants of all. And third, the results do confirm some classical determinants in their positive association with patent value, but highlight a high degree of sensitivity of most of them to the indicator or the sample chosen for the analysis, requiring much care in generalizing such empirical results. 6. The links with patent length: Chapter 6 focuses on one particular dimension of patent value: the length of patents. To do so, the censored nature of the dependent variable (the time elapsed between the filing of a patent application and its ultimate fall into the public domain) dictates the recourse to a survival time model as proposed by Cox (1972). The analysis is original in three main respects. First of all, despite the fact that renewal data have been exploited for about two decades to obtain estimates of patent value (Pakes and Schankerman, 1984), this chapter provides – to the best of our knowledge – the first comprehensive analysis of the determinants of patent length. Second, whereas most of the empirical literature in the field focuses on granted patents and investigates their maintenance, the analysis reported here includes all patent applications. This comprehensive approach is dictated by the provisional rights provided by pending applications to their holders and by the legal uncertainty these represent for competitors. And third, the model integrates a wide set of explanatory variables, starting with the filing strategy variables proposed in chapter 5. The main results are threefold: first, they clearly show that patent rights have significantly increased in length over the past decades despite a small apparent decline in the average grant rate, but largely due to the expansion of the examination process. Second, they indicate that most filing strategies induce considerable delays in the examination process, possibly to the benefit of the patentee, but most certainly to the expense of legal uncertainty on the markets. And third, they confirm that more valuable patents (more cited or covering a larger geographical scope) take more time to process, and live longer, whereas more complex applications are associated with longer decision lags, but also with lower grant and renewal rates. 7. Conclusions: The potential economic consequences and some policy implications of the findings from the dissertation are discussed in chapter 7. The evolution of patenting practices analysed in these works has some direct consequences for the stakeholders of the patent system. For the EPO, they generate a considerable increase in workload, resulting in growing backlogs and processing lags. For innovative firms, this phenomenon translates into an undesired increase in legal uncertainty, for it complicates the assessment of the limits to each party’s rights and hence of the freedom to operate on a market, which is precisely what the so-called ‘patent trolls’ and ‘submariners’ may be looking for. Although empirical evidence is lacking, some fear that this may result in underinvestment in research, development or commercialization activities (e.g. Hall and Harhoff, 2004). In addition, legal uncertainty is synonymous with an increased risk of litigation, which may hamper the development of SMEs and reduce the level of entrepreneurship. Finally, for society, we are left with a contrasted picture, which is hard to interpret. The European patent system wishes to maintain high quality standards to reduce business uncertainty around granted patents, but it is overloaded with the volume of applications filed, resulting in growing backglogs which translate into legal uncertainty surrounding pending applications. The filing strategies that contribute to this situation might reflect a legitimate need for more time and flexibility in filing more valuable patents, but they could also easily turn into real abuses of the system, allowing some patentees to obtain and artificially maintain provisional rights conferred by pending applications on inventions that might not meet the patentability requirements. Distinguishing between these two cases goes beyond the scope of the present dissertation, but should they be found abusive, they should be fought for they consume resources and generate uncertainty. And if legitimate, then they should be understood and the system adapted accordingly (e.g. by adjusting fees to discourage some strategies, raising the inventive step, fine-tuning the statutory term in certain technologies, providing more legal tools for patent examiners to reject unpatentable applications, etc.) so as to better serve the need of inventors for legal protection in a more efficient way, and to adapt the patent system to the challenges it is or will be facing.

In this dissertation I explore the role and importance of patent strategy for appropriating returns from innovation. In particular, I examine the mechanisms through which firms increase appropriability from patenting by employing complementary resources and capabilities and gauge their contribution to firm performance. To this end, I perform three empirical studies. In the first study, I focus on measuring patent value and demonstrate that the importance of firm resources and capabilities is much higher than previously thought. I interpret these results as providing strong support for the view that the design of patent strategy is crucial for profiting from innovation. In the second study, I look into a sample of technology acquisitions and examine under what circumstances firms profit from combining previously separate patent rights. I demonstrate that the merging of overlapping patent portfolios give rise to inimitable synergies, albeit only in complex technology industries. In addition, I find that firms are more likely to acquire targets with patents when their patent productivity is low, when they have a technologically diverse patent portfolio in complex technology industries and when they face an increased threat of being involved in patent suits. In the third study, I explore the role of patent strategies in the non-technological domain. I demonstrate that recent regulatory changes enabling the patenting of business methods can help patentees capture value from business model and management innovations. Moreover, I find that patenting experience and access to complementary assets are both crucial elements of a patenting strategy aimed at increasing appropriability. Taken together, these studies contribute towards bringing studies of patenting and the resource-based view of the firm closer together, to mutual advantage. This results in a better understanding of the effectiveness of patents at the firm-level and in a clearer operationalization of concepts of resources and resource interdependence.

This thesis studies how small Swedish firms used their patents between 1998 to 2016. We also examine the association between used and unused patents and their characteristics such as technological class, family size, inventors, claims, grant and authority. Research data are collected from both databases (PATLINK, Serrano, and PATSTAT) and survey. We found that 79% of patents are used in small Swedish companies and family size is associated with patent use. In small Swedish companies, the increase in patent family size will decrease the frequency of use.

創新能力是近年產業發展的趨勢，過去文獻常只單用專利數量來衡量研發效率，方法直觀卻無法真實反應專利價值。本研究嘗試利用專利數量及專利價值指數一起衡量廠商研發投入與產出間的效率，研究對象為2005年至2007年間中國規模水準以上廠商，利用其專利總價值指數與該公司所投入的資本要素與勞動要素探討該公司資源錯置的現象。有鑑於中國積極引進外資企業進駐中國，本研究依公司註冊登記類型將公司分為國有企業、民營企業及外資企業三大類，藉以研究中國經濟發展政策對此三類企業研發效率發展的影響。結果顯示，國有企業的研發效率優於民營企業與外資企業。因為政府積極實施產業政策以促進國內研發創新能力，給予國有企業相當多的政策優惠，故國有企業擁有較高的研發生產力；而民營企業因核心技術的不足，多以替國外大廠代工為主要經營模式，研發創新能力較低。中國改革開放後，積極引進外資企業進駐中國，而當時外資企業看中的是中國低廉的勞動成本與廣大的潛在市場，核心研發技術並未引進中國，導致外資企業研發能力在資料區間內呈現最為低落的情形。 / Innovation has become the trend for the industrial development nowadays. In the past, little research can measure the industrial outcome due to inadequate knowledge on patent value index. In this paper, I compute the patent value index based on the surveyed data of the manufacturing firms in China from 2005 to 2007. The misallocation between research output and input is computed as the major result. Based on firm registration data, I divided firms into three categories, state-owned firms, private firms and foreign firms. Our result shows that state-owned firms have higher innovation efficiency than others. The high research efficiency belonging to state-owned firms benefited from many industrial policies and preferential policy implemented by government. Due to the lack of innovation technology characterized by OEM (Original equipment manufacturer) model, private firms record lower research performance. Other than domestic firms, foreign firms simply utilize cheap production inputs and the larger market size as a base for process trade. Innovation activities are only conducted by parent companies. That is why foreign firms’ record lower innovation efficiency in this research.

創新無論在經濟成長或是企業競爭中，都扮演非常重要的角色，其中專利權又是保護創新的重要關鍵，但基於專利價值分佈呈離散且偏態的特性，企業在從事研發活動時，必須重視專利品質，以避免專利與技術貿易收支之矛盾情形。過去在專利品質的研究上，被引證次數是最有效的衡量指標，但目前作法卻僅考慮直接被引證次數，而忽略間接被引證次數，此作法造成三個問題：忽略了間接引證資料的攸關性、未考慮各個被引證次數的品質差異、未考慮引證專利的品質差異。因此，本研究以實證研究方法，探討間接被引證次數對企業價值的影響，進而評估間接引證資料於專利品質評估的應用。 本研究以在美積極從事專利活動的美國公開上市企業為樣本，期間為1980年至2002年，以二因子固定效果模型，觀察化學、電腦與通訊、電子與電機產業的創新活動對企業價值的影響。本研究有兩點重要發現：一、研發強度與專利產出效率與企業價值相關性低，甚至呈負向相關，而兼顧量與質的專利指標則與其呈現正向相關，表示研發必須值、量並重；二、間接被引證次數具有價值攸關性，且其影響力會逐層遞減，此結論不僅提供未來相關研究的重要基礎與新的研究方向，更表示在從事專利分析或專利指標設計時，需將間接引證資料納入考量。 / Innovation always plays an important role in both economic development and corporate competition, therefore patents that protect innovation are key. But because patent values are highly dispersed and skewed, corporations must focus on quality and not merely on quantity in R&D management to prevent a technology trade deficit while increasing the quantity of patents granted. Much literature has found that the number of citations received is a good proxy for patent quality. But most people only consider direct citations and ignore indirect citations in their research and practices. These people ignore three important facts: the value relevance of indirect citations, the weight difference of each citation count, and the quality dispersion of citing patents. As a result, this study utilizes empirical methods to discuss the influence of the number of indirect citations received on corporate market value and then assesses the relevance of indirect citation in patent indicators. The samples used in this study are 1,624 U.S. listed firms that have been active in applying for for patents in three areas: chemical, computer and communication, and electric and electronics between the years 1980 and 2002. This study uses two-way fixed effect model to evaluate the influence of innovation activities on corporate value. The first conclusion suggests that patent indicators based on quantity and quality has positive correlation with corporate value while R&D intensity and R&D efficiency based on patent quantity both have low correlation and sometimes even a negative correlation with corporate value. This implies that corporations must develop a R&D strategy that focus both on quantity and quality at the same time. The second conclusion confirms the value relevance of the number of indirect citations received and finds the progressively declining influence of ascending citation orders. This study not only offers an important basis and brings up new issues for future related research but also confirms that taking indirect citation data into consideration is necessary.

本研究從DNA定序產業之美國專利侵權訴訟，了解該產業中廠商的訴訟行為與系爭專利之特性。本研究由商用資料庫取得DNA定序產業之美國專利侵權訴訟共100件及其系爭專利共168件，分析訴訟資訊、訴訟主體資訊(原告及被告)和訴訟客體資訊(系爭專利和被控侵權產品)。本研究也由次級資料中歸類各廠商在DNA定序產業鏈中之位置和其各世代產品技術之發展。由訴訟主體資訊可得知在DNA定序產業中，主要發起美國專利侵權訴訟之廠商為中游的儀器平台廠商，被控專利侵權的廠商也多為具有相同商業模式在同樣產業鏈位置上的競爭者。而由訴訟客體資訊中，除了以產品技術結構定位系爭專利之保護標的和技術特徵外，也從專利的被引證數、專利家族大小、所有權移轉次數、國際分類號分佈等指標比較系爭專利和一組同樣專利權人在相同時間間隔內申請的同技術領域之對照組專利，可發現系爭專利和對照組專利相比屬於較有價值的專利。 / The present research analyzes the U.S. patent infringement cases of the DNA sequencing industry to understand the features of patent-in-suit and litigation behaviors in said industry. The present research obtains 100 U.S. patent infringement cases and 168 patent-in-suit from commercial databases. The litigation history, parties in the litigation (plaintiff and defendant), subject matter of the litigation (the patent-in-suit and the infringing products) are analyzed. The present research identifies the position of different corporate entities in the DNA sequencing industry chain and the development of each generations of DNA sequencing technology. By analyzing the parties in the litigation, the present research identifies that most of the plaintiffs are corporate entities developing sequencing instrument, and most of the defendants are competitiors having the same business model with the plaintiffs. By analyzing subject matter of the litigation, the present research identifies the technical features and subject matter of the patent-in-suit. The present research compares the citation, patent family size, number of ownership transfer and IPC distribution between the patent-in-suit and a control group patents of the same technical field within the same time frame. The patent-in-suit is more valuable than the control group patents.

專利和創新是近年產業發展極重要的趨勢，但是在過去對於中國產業的資源錯置相關研究中，卻沒有發現以專利來做為衡量產出的標準。因此本研究蒐集了中國2005到2007年的水準以上製造業廠商資料，並將Mtrends專利檢索平台資料庫中之專利資料加以整合，建構出中國水準以上製造業廠商之美國專利資料的資料庫。並依據文獻所提出之資源錯置模型，以資料庫中之專利資料作為創新研發產出之代表，計算出廠商之效率值與資源錯置的程度。根據廠商之專利數量及專利價值指標兩種衡量方式來討論中國東部沿海三大經濟區，環渤海經濟區、長三角經濟區及珠三角經濟區之效率值及資源錯置問題。研究結果發現珠三角經濟區因開放年代較早，在人力及知識累積下，研發效率值相對較高，資源錯置問題亦相對較不嚴重的，而長三角與環渤海經濟區由於產業多集中於高科技產業，部分廠商之技術尚未成熟，因此在研發效率值的表現上較為落後且資源錯置問題亦相對較為嚴重。 / Innovation and patent applications have become the central issue for the industrial development nowadays. In the past, there’s little research to measure the innovation outputs by patents. Thus, in this paper, I collected the data for the manufacturing firms in China from 2005 to 2007 and combine with the patent data in Mtrends database. Based on my misallocation computation, I use patent as the R&D output and measure the innovation efficiency and the misallocation level. Based on my result, the efficiency is higher in Pearl River Delta Economic Zone due to its earlier development and low in Bohai Bay Economic Zone & Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone because of industrial concentration. Thus, the misallocation is much more severe in Bohai Bay Economic Zone & Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone and is much lighter in Pearl River Delta Economic Zone.

La présente recherche vise à comprendre le processus ou le mécanisme de valorisation de la propriété industrielle aussi bien dans les pays développés que dans les pays en développement suite à la conclusion de l’accord historique ADPIC.L’analyse de données factuelles se rapportant à la protection de la propriété industrielle pharmaceutique en Tunisie nous oriente vers une modélisation possible de l’industrie pharmaceutique tunisienne.La recherche identifie deux voies ou stratégies d’exploitation des brevets : « license in » ou « license out ». Cependant, c’est le dépôt de brevet par les nationaux résidents qui fait défaut en Tunisie dans le domaine pharmaceutique, dominé par les biotechnologies à l’échelle mondiale.Le rapprochement des industries locales avec des partenaires scientifiques internationaux pourrait être une voie possible de valorisation. / We aim in this research to study how to assess the value of a patent in developed countries as well as in emerging ones, mainly according to the TRIPS.Modelization of the pharmaceutical industry in Tunisia has been possible when analyzing data evidence from pharmaceuticals patents in Tunisia.This research identify two strategies to capitalize on patents: « license in » ou « license out ».However, only few local industries in Tunisia are willing to file patents, even ifbiotechnologies dominate global pharmaceutical market.Being in touch with international scientific partners, signing contracts could help to valorize industrial property in Tunisia.