Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-fnl2l Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-10T14:39:49.490Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Did R&D Firms Used to Patent? Evidence from the First Innovation Surveys

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2011

TOM NICHOLAS
TOM NICHOLAS*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Entrepreneurial Management Group, Harvard Business School, Soldiers Field Road, Boston, MA 02163. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Matching 2,777 R&D firms in surveys conducted by the National Research Council between 1921 and 1938 with U.S. patents reveals that 59 percent of all firms and 88 percent of publicly traded firms patented. These shares are much higher than those observed for modern R&D firms. Industry, firm size and the location of R&D facilities relative to major cities are shown to be important determinants of the propensity to patent. The effect of these factors remained constant across the 1920s and the Depression years suggesting that the tradeoff between patent disclosure and secrecy did not change over time.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 71 , Issue 4 , December 2011 , pp. 1032 - 1059
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Anton, James and Yao, Dennis. “Expropriation and Inventions: Appropriable Rents in the Absence of Property Rights.” American Economic Review 84, no. 1 (1994): 190–209.Google Scholar
Arora, Ashish. “Patents, Licensing, and Market Structure in the Chemical Industry.” Research Policy 26, no. 4–5 (1997): 391–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arundel, Anthony. “The Relative Effectiveness of Patents and Secrecy for Appropriation.” Research Policy 30, no. 4 (2001): 611–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkeson, Andrew, and Patrick, J. Kehoe. “Modeling the Transition to a New Economy: Lessons from Two Technological Revolutions.” American Economic Review 97, no. 1 (2007): 64–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balasubramanian, Natarajan and Sivadasan, Jagadeesh. “What Happens When Firms Patent? New Evidence from U.S. Economic Census Data.” Review of Economics and Statistics 93, no. 1 (2011): 126–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barlevy, Gadi. “On the Cyclicality of Research and Development.” American Economic Review 97, no. 4 (2007): 1131–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bessen, James. “NBER PDP Project User Documentation: Matching Patent Data to Compustat Firms.” NBER Mimeo, 2009.Google Scholar
Bessen, James, and James Meurer, Michael. Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Bound, John, Cummins, Clint, Griliches, Zvi, Hall, Bronwyn H., and Jaffe, Adam B.. Who Does R&D and Who Patents? In R&D, Patents, and Productivity, edited by Griliches, Zvi, 21–54. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Brouwer, Erik and Kleinknecht, Alfred. “Innovative Output and a Firm's Propensity to Patent: An Exploration of CIS Micro Data.” Research Policy 28, no. 6 (1999): 615–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Wesley M., Goto, Akira, Nagata, Akiya, Nelson, Richard and Walsh, John. “R&D Spillovers, Patents, and the Incentives to Innovate in Japan and the United States.” Research Policy 31, no. 8 (2002): 1349–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Wesley M., Nelson, Richard R., and John, P. Walsh. “Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions and Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (or Not).” NBER Working Paper No. 7552, Cambridge, MA, February 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Commercial and Financial Chronicle. Various years from 1921 through 1938.Google Scholar
David, Paul. “The Dynamo and the Computer: An Historical Perspective on the Modern Productivity Paradox.” American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings 80, no. 2 (1990): 355–61.Google Scholar
Denicolo, Vincenzo and Franzoni, Luigi. “Patents, Secrets, and the First-Inventor Defense.” Journal of Economics and Management Strategy 13, no. 3 (2004): 517–38.Google Scholar
Field, Alexander. “The Most Technologically Progressive Decade of the Twentieth Century.” American Economic Review 93, no. 4 (2003): 1399–1413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, Alexander. A Great Leap Forward: 1930s Depression and U.S. Economic Growth.New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Gallini, Nancy T. “The Economics of Patents: Lessons from Recent U.S. Patent Reform.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 16, no. 1 (2002): 131–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gans, Joshua S., Hsu, David H. and Stern, Scott. “The Impact of Uncertain Intellectual Property Rights on the Market for Ideas: Evidence from Patent Grant Delays.” Management Science 54, no. 5 (2008): 982–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griliches, Zvi. “Issues in Assessing the Contribution of Research and Development to Productivity Growth.” Bell Journal of Economics 10, no. 1 (1979): 92–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griliches, Zvi. “Comments and Discussion: Appropriating the Returns from Industrial Research and Development.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity no. 3 (1987): 783–831.Google Scholar
Hall, Bronwyn, Jaffe, Adam and Trajtenberg, Manuel. “The NBER Patent-Citations Data File: Lessons, Insights, and Methodological Tools.” In Patents, Citation, and Innovations: A Window on the Knowledge Economy, edited by Jaffe, Adam and Trajtenberg, Manuel, 403–59.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Harabi, Najib. “Appropriability of Technical Innovations an Empirical Analysis.” Research Policy 24, no. 6 (1995): 981–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holland, M., and Spraragen, W.. Research in Hard Times. Washington DC: National Research Council, 1933.Google Scholar
Hsu, David H., and Ziedonis, R. H.. “Patents as Quality Signals for Entrepreneurial Ventures.” Academy of Management Best Papers Proceedings, 2008.Google Scholar
Jovanovic, Boyan, and Peter, L. Rousseau. “Why Wait? A Century of Life Before IPO.” American Economic Review 91, no. 2 (2001): 336–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Sukkoo. “Expansion of Markets and the Geographic Distribution of Economic Activities: The Tends in U.S. Regional Manufacturing Structure, 1860–1987.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 110, no. 4 (1995): 881–908.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kultti, Klaus, Takalo, Tuomas and Toikka, Juuso. “Secrecy versus Patenting.” Rand Journal of Economics 38, no. 1 (2007): 22–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerner, Josh. “150 Years of Patent Protection.” American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 92, no. 2 (2002): 221–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerner, Josh. “The Empirical Impact of Intellectual Property Rights on Innovation: Puzzles and Clues.” American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 99, no. 2 (2009): 343–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levin, Richard C., Klevorick, Alvin K., Nelson, Richard R., and Sidney, G. Winter. “Appropriating the Returns from Industrial Research and Development.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity no. 3 (1987):783–831.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacGarvie, Megan, and Jeffrey, L. Furman. “Academic Science and the Birth of Industrial Research Laboratories in the U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 63, no. 4 (2007): 756–76.Google Scholar
MacGarvie, Megan, and Jeffrey, L. Furman. “Academic Collaboration and Organizational Innovation: the Development of Research Capabilities in the US Pharmaceutical Industry, 1927–1946.” Industrial and Corporate Change 18, no. 5 (2009): 929–61.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Edwin. “Patents and Innovation: An Empirical Study.” Management Science 32, no. 2 (1986): 173–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLennan, W. “Innovation in Australian Manufacturing 1994.” Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, Catalogue no. 8116.0., 1995.Google Scholar
Moser, Petra. “How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs.” American Economic Review 95, no. 4 (2005): 1214–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mowery, David. The Emergence and Growth of Industrial Research in American Manufacturing, 1899–1945. Ph.D. Diss., Stanford University, 1981.Google Scholar
Mowery, David “Industrial Research and Firm Size, Survival, and Growth in American Manufacturing, 1921–1946: An Assessment.” The Journal of Economic History 43, no. 4 (1983): 953–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mowery, David “The Boundaries of the U.S. Firm in Research and Development.” In Coordination and Information: Historical Perspectives on the Organization of Enterprise, edited by Lamoreaux, Naomi and Raff, Daniel, 147–82. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Mowery, David “Development of Industrial Research in U.S. Manufacturing.” American Economic Review 80, no. 2 (2005): 345–49.Google Scholar
Mowery, David, and Rosenberg, Nathan. Technology and the Pursuit of Economic Growth.Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1989.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mowery, David, and Rosenberg, Nathan Paths of Innovation: Technological Change in Twentieth Century America.Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
National Research Council. Industrial Research Laboratories of the United States. Washington DC: National Research Council. Various years from 1921 through 1938.Google Scholar
Nelson, Richard and Wright, Gavin. “The Rise and Fall of American Technological Leadership: The Postwar Era in Historical Perspective.” Journal of Economic Literature 30, no. 4 (1992): 1931–64.Google Scholar
Nicholas, Tom. “Spatial Diversity in Invention: Evidence from the Early R&D Labs.” Journal of Economic Geography 9, no. 1 (2009): 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholas, Tom. “The Role of Independent Invention in U.S. Technological Development, 1880–1930.” The Journal of Economic History 70, no. 1 (2010): 59–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perazich, George, and Philip, M. Field. “Industrial Research and Changing Technology.” Works Progress Administration, National Research Project, 1940.Google Scholar
Pred, Allen R. The Spatial Dynamics of U.S. Urban Industrial Growth, 1800–1914.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966.Google Scholar
Raff, Daniel and Trajtenberg, Manuel. “Quality-Adjusted Prices for the American Automobile Industry: 1906–1940.” In The Economics of New Goods, edited by Bresnahan, Timothy F. and Gordon, Robert J., 71–108. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Scherer, F. M. “The Propensity to Patent.” International Journal of Industrial Organization 1, no. 1 (1983): 107–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmookler, Jacob. Invention and Economic Growth.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scotchmer, Suzanne and Green, Jerry. “Novelty and Disclosure in Patent Law.” Rand Journal of Economics 21, no. 1 (1990): 131–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sokoloff, Kenneth “Inventive Activity in Early Industrial America: Evidence from Patent Records, 1790–1846.” The Journal of Economic History 48, no. 4 (1988): 813–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streb, Jochen. “Catching-Up and Falling Behind? Illegitimate Knowledge Spillover from American to German Machine Tool Makers, 1877–1932.” Hohenheim Mimeo, 2009.Google Scholar
Szostak, Rick. Technological Innovation and the Great Depression. London: Westview Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Thoma, Grid, Torrisi, Salvatore, Gambardella, Alfonso, Guellec, Dominique, Hall, Bronwyn H. and Harhoff, Dietmar. “Harmonizing and Combining Large Datasets: An Application to Firm-Level Patent and Accounting Data.” NBER Working Paper No. 15851, Cambridge, MA, March 2010.Google Scholar