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Science quality and the value of inventions.
Felix Poege1,2, Dietmar Harhoff1,3,4, Fabian Gaessler1,5
1Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Germany.
Science Advances
|December 18, 2019
Summary
High-quality science significantly boosts invention value. Patents linked to top-tier research are twice as valuable as those linked to lower-quality science or no science at all.
Area of Science:
- Bibliometrics
- Innovation Studies
- Patent Analysis
Background:
- The link between scientific advancement and technological innovation is widely acknowledged but empirically complex.
- Quantifying the direct impact of scientific quality on invention value has been a persistent challenge in research and development studies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between the quality of scientific research and the economic value of patents referencing that research.
- To quantify how scientific quality influences patent value using a large-scale data-matching approach.
Main Methods:
- A large-scale data-matching exercise linking 4.8 million patent families with 43 million publication records.
- Development and application of metrics to assess both science quality and patent value.
- Ranking patents based on the quality of cited scientific contributions.
Main Results:
- A strong positive correlation was found between the quality of cited science and the value of inventions.
- Patents linked to high-quality science were found to be twice as valuable as those linked to lower-quality science.
- The value of patents linked to low-quality science was comparable to patents with no direct scientific linkage.
Conclusions:
- Scientific excellence directly translates into technological and commercial success.
- Investing in high-quality scientific research is likely to yield more valuable and impactful inventions.
- The findings underscore the importance of fostering robust scientific endeavors for driving innovation and economic growth.
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