Abstract
R&D managers, economists, and science policymakers all use patent (and patent-related) data in vastly different forms and ways, but not for altogether different reasons. In almost all cases, patents are used as some measure of the effectiveness of R&D activity. Yet in spite of the vast literature which uses patent information for analytical purposes, relatively little has been done to comprehensively present the various evaluation purposes to which patent data may be put. Far more common is the use of patent data as econometric proxies for inventiveness, innovation, or technological change; overviews of this research (Basberg, 1987) and the ways in which patent statistics have been “used and abused” (Pavitt, 1988) are typical of the review literature. Missing is instruction on the techniques, utility, and limitations of patent analysis for different kinds of R&D assessments.
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© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Papadakis, M. (1993). Patents and the Evaluation of R&D. In: Bozeman, B., Melkers, J. (eds) Evaluating R&D Impacts: Methods and Practice. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5182-6_6
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