High Technology Entrepreneurs and the Patent System: Results of the 2008 Berkeley Patent Survey

Abstract

We offer description and analysis of the 2008 Berkeley Patent Surveythe first comprehensive survey of patenting and entrepreneurship in the United States-summarizing the responses of 1,332 early-stage technology companies founded since 1998. Our results show that entrepreneurs have varied and subtle reasons for using the patent system, many of which diverge from the traditional theory that patents provide an "incentive to invent." Somewhat surprisingly, startup executives report that patents generally provide relatively weak incentives to conduct innovative activities. But while a substantial share of early-stage companies hold no patents, we also find that holding patents is more widespread than previously reported, with patenting patterns and motives being highly industry, technology, and context specific. When early-stage companies patent, they are often seeking competitive advantage, and the associated goals of preventing technology copying, securing financing, and enhancing reputation. We find substantial differences between the health-related sectors (biotechnology and medical devices), in which patents are more commonly used and considered important, and the software and Internet fields, in which patents are reported to be less useful. Startups with venture funding hold more patents regardless of industry, although unlike software companies, venture-backed IT hardware firms show a patenting pattern more similar to that of health-related firms. When choosing not to patent major innovations, early-stage companies often cite to cost considerations, and report substantially higher patenting costs than the

Frontier Firms, Technology Diffusion and Public Policy

“… Stronger patent protection is associated with lower productivity gap, relative to other industries. This is consistent with research showing that patents are more likely to be associated with an increase in innovation in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and specific chemical sectors (Arora et al, 2001;Graham et al, 2009) -where the boundaries of the innovation are relatively clear, but also where the invention process is neither particularly cumulative nor highly fragmented (Hall and Harhoff, 2012).…”

Firms’ Negative Perceptions on Patents, Technology Management Strategies, and Subsequent Performance

“…Such firms may prefer to engage in open innovation with external resources to develop or commercialize technology. Moreover, if firms lack resources, including professional human resources and funding (e.g., inability to pay considerable costs of patenting, transaction, and patent litigation or inability to monitor and enforce patents), they perceive difficulties in performing patenting activities and, consequently, tend to not protect their technologies with patents [3,45,46]. These firms may prefer to conduct open innovation strategies or licensing.…”

Promoting Progress: A Qualitative Analysis of Creative and Innovative Production

“…The literature tends to admit this failing (Landes and Posner, 2003) but nonetheless continues to dominate case law, statutory reform and, by consequence, legal advice and counsel. 4 The well-regarded 2008 Berkeley patent survey is a quantitative study of motives and incentives (Graham et al, 2009). Some recent qualitative research on intellectual property from the legal academy includes Schwartz (2012);Gallagher (2012);Silbey (2011Silbey ( , 2013.…”