Exploring a Complicated Labyrinth: Some Tips on Using Patent Data to Measure Urban and Regional Innovation

The ability to generate and exploit new knowledge is becoming the hallmark of a region’s economic strength, but unlike typical economic measures, innovation and knowledge production do not have accessible and obvious indicators. Because inventors frequently seek patent protection for new knowledge or processes, patents serve as a proxy for innovative activity. Patent data published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office offer a circuitous look at the activities of firms, both in the United States and internationally, in the generation of knowledge. These data, however, are often difficult to understand and manipulate. This article describes the patent data most easily available to researchers and presents a starting point for collecting, manipulating, and using patent data as a measure of innovative activity within a geographical region. The methods described here were employed in the Indiana metropolitan statistical area case study that also appears in this issue.