Data and Code for: Disclosure and Subsequent Innovation: Evidence from the Patent Depository Library Program

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Jeffrey L. Furman, Boston University Questrom School of Business; Markus Nagler, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg; Martin Watzinger, University of Munich

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
  data 03/11/2021 01:19:PM
  do 03/11/2021 01:21:PM
  other programs 12/22/2020 03:31:AM
  results 12/22/2020 03:31:AM
Readme_FNW.pdf application/pdf 191.5 KB 03/11/2021 08:27:AM

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary This is the data and code necessary to replicate the results in our paper "Disclosure and Subsequent Innovation: Evidence from the Patent Depository Library Program"

Abstract: How important is access to patent documents for subsequent innovation? We examine the expansion of the USPTO Patent Library system after 1975. Patent libraries provided access to patents before the Internet. We find that after patent library opening, local patenting increases by 8-20% relative to similar regions. Additional analyses suggest that disclosure of technical information drives this effect: inventors increasingly take up ideas from outside their region and the effect is strongest in technologies where patents are more informative. We thus provide evidence that disclosure plays an important role in cumulative innovation.

Scope of Project

JEL Classification:  View help for JEL Classification
      O30 Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights: General
      O34 Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage United States
Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) administrative records data; aggregate data; census/enumeration data; program source code


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V1 [2021-10-25]

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