TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kortum,Samuel
AU  - Lerner,Josh
TI  - Stronger Protection or Technological Revolution: What is Behind the Recent Surge in Patenting?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6204
PY  - 1997
Y2  - September 1997
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6204
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6204.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Samuel S. Kortum
Department of Economics
Yale University
P.O. Box 208264
New Haven, CT 06520
Tel: 773/702-8251
Fax: 773/702-8490
E-Mail: kortum@uchicago.edu

Josh Lerner
Harvard Business School
Rock Center 214
Boston, MA 02163
Tel: 617/495-6065
Fax: 617/496-7357
E-Mail: jlerner@hbs.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 1998-05-01
AB  - We investigate the cause of an unprecedented surge of U.S. patenting over the past" decade.  Conventional wisdom points to the establishment of the Court of Appeals of the" Federal Circuit by Congress in 1982.  We examine whether this institutional change benefitted patent holders, explains the burst in U.S. patenting. Using both international and" domestic data on patent applications and awards, we conclude that the evidence is not favorable" to the conventional view.  Instead, it appears that the jump in patenting reflects an increase in" U.S. innovation spurred by changes in the management of research.
ER  -