Patent Value and Citations: Creative Destruction or Strategic Disruption?
Working Paper 19647
DOI 10.3386/w19647
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Prior work suggests that more valuable patents are cited more. Using novel revenue data for tens of thousands of patents held by non-practicing entities (NPEs), we find that the relationship between citations and value forms an inverted-U, with fewer citations at the high end of value than in the middle. We explain the inverted-U with a model of innovation that has productive and strategic patents. Empirically, we observe more strategic patents where the model predicts: among inventors in fields of rapid development and where divisional applications are employed. These findings have important implications for our understanding of growth, innovation, intellectual property policy, and patent valuation.