NBER Publications by Grid Thoma

We take a first look at financial patents at the European Patent Office (EPO). As is the case at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the number of financial patents in Europe has increased significantly in parallel with significant changes in payment and financial systems. Scholars have argued that financial patents, like other business methods patents, have low value and are owned for strategic reasons rather than for protecting real inventions. We find that established firms in non-financial sectors with diversified patent portfolios own a large share of financial patents at the EPO. However, new specialized technology providers in the financial area also hold a number of such patents. Decisions on the financial patent applications take longer and they are more likely to be refus...

This paper provides novel empirical evidence on the private value of patents and R&D in European firms during the period 1991-2004. We explore the relationship between firm's stock market value, patents, and "quality"-weighted patents issued by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). We find that Tobin's q is positively and significantly associated with R&D and patent stocks, but that only those patents taken out in both patent offices or at the USPTO alone seem to be valued. Either forward citations or a composite quality indicator based on forward citations, family size and the number of technical fields covered by the patent are modestly informative for value. Software patents account for a rising share of total patents in the USPTO and EPO. More...