ABSTRACT

Our study examines whether the growth in patenting activity in India, spurred by policy changes such as the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), is reflected in a corresponding increase in the ‘quality’ of Indian patents. To investigate this, we utilise 6,777 Indian patent data granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which were filed between 1984 and 2015. Using the Cox regression methodology and citation lag as a measure, we evaluate the value of Indian patents at inventor, firm, and technology levels. At the inventor level, we find patents with the first US inventor have a shorter citation lag, indicating a higher patent value than those with the first Indian inventor. Similarly, among assignees, the subsidiaries of foreign firms tend to have a higher patent value than other assignees, including Indian firms, institutions, and universities. At the technology level, we find that patents in electrical engineering are more valuable than those in other categories, including chemistry, mechanical engineering, instruments, and other fields. Furthermore, our empirical findings support an overall increasing value of Indian patents in more recent filings, as the study demonstrates a declining citation lag trend of newly filed patents.

摘要

我们的研究考察了印度专利申请活动的增长是否受到诸如《与贸易有关的知识产权协定》(TRIPs) 等政策变化的刺激，反映在“质量”的相应提高上印度专利。为了对此进行调查，我们使用了美国专利商标局 (USPTO) 授予的 6,777 项印度专利数据，这些数据在 1984 年至 2015 年间提交。使用 Cox 回归方法和引用滞后作为衡量标准，我们评估了印度专利的价值在发明人、公司和技术层面。在发明人层面，我们发现第一位美国发明人的专利引用滞后较短，表明专利价值高于第一位印度发明人的专利。同样，在受让人中，外国公司的子公司往往比其他受让人（包括印度公司、机构和大学）拥有更高的专利价值。在技​​术层面，我们发现电气工程领域的专利比其他类别的专利更有价值，包括化学、机械工程、仪器、等领域。此外，我们的实证研究结果支持印度专利在最近申请中的整体价值增加，因为该研究表明新申请专利的引用滞后趋势正在下降。