Comments on: Using Patents to Measure Innovation is a Really Bad Idea

By: Nik

Nik — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 18:35:02 +0000

Hey,

You can still use patent data to measure innovation, or at least one aspect of innovation. You just have to adjust for industry. The easiest way to do this is to use patent-by-industry data for international comparisons. You could also adjust patent counts for the share of GDP accounted for by ‘big’ patenting industries like ICT and pharma.

It has become very fashionable these days to pooh-pooh patents. We run the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater if we aren’t careful.

Suggest people also look into OECD triadic patent families, an attempt to filter out national bias in patenting data.

By: A Patent is Not a Business Model « Innovation Leadership Network

A Patent is Not a Business Model « Innovation Leadership Network — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 05:19:21 +0000

[...] However, my biggest problem with the statement is the contention that having protectable IP is the only way to succeed. I guess this is understandable coming from an organisation whose primary performance metric is patents generated. As John has pointed out, overall, patents are a lousy proxy measure for innovation. [...]

By: Innovation, Metrics and Incentives « Innovation Strategy « Innovation Leadership Network

Mon, 03 May 2010 06:36:45 +0000

[...] metrics are bad, measuring something like patents is only marginally better than doing nothing (and could actually be worse!). We need better metrics for tracking innovation. Scott Anthony has some excellent suggestions. He [...]

By: Too Much IP Protection is Bad for Innovation « Innovation « Innovation Leadership Network

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:57:32 +0000

[...] were some good (all reactions are good!) reactions to the blog post on the problems of using patent counts to measure innovation so I thought I would follow up with [...]

By: Marco

Marco — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:06:13 +0000

John,
I agree that measuring innovation by counting patents sounds like a bad idea. I would like to add a couple reasons why I think it is not and suggest a purpose that it can actually serve.
First, a patent count is a metric that poorly reflects innovation in the environment. When I was looking at patents filed by universities in Australia, it turns out that only 4% of patents filed in the last 5 years had a university as the patent filer. It also turns out that the majority of patents filed by universities in Australia are filed by NON-Australian universities. Despite newspaper hoopla, Australian universities file, in fact, a very small number of patents every year. Does this means there is not much innovation going on?
Second, a patent count is -itself- a poor metric. As you rightly point out, It does not cover secrecy or non-disclosure agreements. It also does not cover software, open-access technologies (let’s keep in mind that quite a bit of innovation is funded by government or organisation that require open-access). Moreover, patent count is a quantitative measure that does not (cannot?) reflect the quality of what is being patented. Some organisations patent all their products as a matter of course while others only do so when they think that the product is valuable.
Rather, what counting patents might be useful for, I think, is how successful organisations are in “converting”: pushing their products through the door and in the hands of the community. We are familiar with major products that were never “converted” successfully despite the undeniable innovation involved (e.g. Xerox STAR’s stuff). A patent count might be a way to tell how good organisations are in maximising profit from their innovation profile (be it good or bad.)

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:36:10 +0000

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