Patent claims and the value of the patents

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K13380
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Management
• Research Institution: Hitotsubashi University
• Principal Investigator: OKADA Yoshimi 一橋大学, 大学院商学研究科, 教授 (20732647)
• Research Collaborator: NAGAOKA Sadao 東京経済大学, 経済学部, 教授 (00255952) ; NAITO Yusuke 一橋大学, 大学院商学研究科, 産官学連携研究員
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 特許請求の範囲 / 特許権の価値 / 権利範囲の広さ / 請求項の文字数 / 複合技術 / 個別技術 / 前方引用 / 分位点回帰

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The way to measure the breadth of the patent scope of a patent appropriately is not established. This study explore to use the inverse of the first claim length (IFCL) of a patent as the indicator. This indicator has very significant predictive power for the social value of the underlying invention as measured by applicant forward citations, controlling for two existing indicators of patent scope (the number of patent claims and the number of different patent classification codes assigned). Moreover, its predictive power for the incidence of top-ranked patents increases in higher quantiles in the complex but not the discrete technology area, unlike the other indicators. This is consistent with our developed economic model predicting that the social value of an invention depends on the emergence of complementary inventions the number of which depends on the breadth of the patent scope of the focal patent. The IFCL seems to capture the breadth of patent scope well.

Free Research Field

知的財産権とイノベーション