While patent data are now readily available for most nations, these data are still of minimal use for economic analysis due to their mode of presentation. Patents are recorded for administrative purposes using the International Patent Classification (IPC) system, which categorises inventions by...

This paper models the decision of a firm to engage in innovative activity and to protect the results of that activity. Using a unique firm-level dataset collected for this purpose, estimation indicates that the interactions between current R&D and past licensing are prime contributors to...

While it is clear that there has been a "regional inversionʺ in American patent activity over the past 25 years (i.e. relative rise of the Northwest and Southwest at the expense of the traditional invention hotbeds of the Northeast and Midwest), the reason is still open to speculation....

Using patent citation data for the U.S., we test whether knowledge spillovers in biotechnology are sensitive to distance. Controlling for self-citation by inventor, assignee and examiner, cohort-based regression analysis shows that spillovers are local but that distance is becoming less...