green73
05-08-2013, 06:55 AM
We've pointed out over and over and over again that patents are not a proxy for innovation. In fact, there's little to connect the two at all, except potentially for how patents can hinder and hold back the pace of innovation. A new study really helps to drive home how little patents have to do with innovation. Pointed out to us by James Bessen, the study looks at "R&D 100 Awards" from the academic journal, Research & Development from 1977 to 2004. As you might expect, the R&D 100 Awards are given out each year by the journal in an attempt to name the top 100 innovations of the year. If patents were instrumental in driving innovation, you'd certainly expect most of these innovations to be patented.
But you'd be wrong, as the reports authors, Roberto Fontana, Alessandro Nuvolari, Hiroshi Shimizu and Andrea Vezzulli, quickly discovered.
A stunning 91% of all of the technologies receiving the prize were not actually patented (http://ideas.repec.org/p/ise/isegwp/wp092013.html). That's covering approximately 3,000 technologies winning this award as the most innovative advancement of the year over a period of about three decades. What's interesting to me is that this actually matches very closely with one of my favorite studies on patents, from economist Petra Moser, who looked at historical patenting rates from the 19th century using data on products displayed at the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851 and the Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, which against showed very few of the "economically useful" inventions were patented. Over 80% were not patented. Of course, you might think that back in the 1800s there was less interest in patenting, but this new study suggests a rather similar rate to what Moser found from 150 years ago.
cont
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20130502/10513922919/over-90-most-innovative-products-past-few-decades-were-not-patented.shtml
But you'd be wrong, as the reports authors, Roberto Fontana, Alessandro Nuvolari, Hiroshi Shimizu and Andrea Vezzulli, quickly discovered.
A stunning 91% of all of the technologies receiving the prize were not actually patented (http://ideas.repec.org/p/ise/isegwp/wp092013.html). That's covering approximately 3,000 technologies winning this award as the most innovative advancement of the year over a period of about three decades. What's interesting to me is that this actually matches very closely with one of my favorite studies on patents, from economist Petra Moser, who looked at historical patenting rates from the 19th century using data on products displayed at the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851 and the Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, which against showed very few of the "economically useful" inventions were patented. Over 80% were not patented. Of course, you might think that back in the 1800s there was less interest in patenting, but this new study suggests a rather similar rate to what Moser found from 150 years ago.
cont
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20130502/10513922919/over-90-most-innovative-products-past-few-decades-were-not-patented.shtml