TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lanjouw,Jean O.
AU  - Pakes,Ariel
AU  - Putnam,Jonathan
TI  - How to Count Patents and Value Intellectual Property: Uses of Patent Renewal and Application Data
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5741
PY  - 1996
Y2  - September 1996
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5741
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5741.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jenny Lanjouw
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC  20036
Tel: 202/797-6275
Fax: 202/797-2968
E-Mail: jlanjouw@brook.edu

Ariel Pakes
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Littauer Room 117
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-5320
Fax: 617/496-7352
E-Mail: apakes@fas.harvard.edu
AB  - Patent counts are very imperfect measures of innovative output. This paper discusses how additional data-the number of years a patent is renewed and the number of countries in which protection for the same invention is sought - can be used to improve on counts in studies which require a measure of the extent of innovation.  A simple renewal based weighting scheme is proposed which may remove half of the noise in patent counts as a measure of innovative output.  The paper also illustrates how these data can be used to estimate the value of the proprietary rights created by the patent laws.  The parameters estimated in this analysis can be used to answer a series of questions related to the value of patents.  We illustrate with estimates of how the value of patent protection would vary under alternative legal rules and renewal fees, and with estimates of the international flows of returns from the patent system.  Recent progress in the development of databases has increased the potential for this type of analysis.
ER  -