It is commonly asserted that innovation markets suffer from excessive intellectual property protections, which in turn stifle output. But empirical inquiries can neither confirm nor deny this assertion. Under the "agnostic" assumption that we cannot assess directly whether intellectual-property...

This short contribution updates through 2018 the author’s prior empirical study on global innovation trends as indicated by USPTO patenting data during 1965-2015. The principal trends identified previously have largely continued, with the exception of a slight universal decline in annual...