🔬 Patent offices as accidental laboratories?
Differences between examiners can help economists uncover what patents do for startups and inventors—provided the "luck of the draw" holds.
Read this month's review on #ThePatentist
thepatentist.com/p/examiner-…
Gaétan de Rassenfosse retweeted
It seems fitting that this lands during the 4th @OECD Blue Sky Forum, the once-a-decade gathering on measuring science, themed this year on "Better data for policies and better policies for data".
We think there's significant potential in dissertation science for future workforce capability measurement.
Link: event.fourwaves.com/oecdblue…
Tagging a few I know on the agenda...
@DietmarHarhoff @dashunwang @gderasse @JMateosGarcia
🚨 Forthcoming at Research Policy: "Measuring the Production of Scientific Human Capital: New Data, Methods, and Evidence"
Every PhD leaves behind one common artifact: a dissertation. We read 1.2 million US STEM PhD dissertations from 1950-2022 and use them to measure new features of the US scientific training ecosystem.
Want to know where expertise is embodied? Who's training grads in critical technology-related science? Who's providing the funding?
This is just the start of what one can do.
Details below 🧵
joint w/ @DShvadron, @HansenZhang13 & Lee Fleming
Some #inventions are strawberries + balsamic vinegar. Others are a pastry chef borrowing a savory spice for the first time.
New on #ThePatentist: how researchers measure invention #novelty using #patent classes, citations, text, and disruption metrics.
thepatentist.com/p/measuring…
🤔 A country with 100,000 #patent applications is not necessarily twice as innovative as one with 50,000.
Patent #statistics look precise. Their meaning is much messier.
New on #ThePatentist: “Counting patents, miscounting #innovation”
open.substack.com/pub/thepat…
Gaétan de Rassenfosse retweeted
Amazing faculty position at the Geneva Graduate Institute in Finance and Development/International Macro/Sustainable Finance:
We are recruiting a full professor in Economics. Please retweet and send to interested people (BTW a few a people asked if I am leaving and this is to replace me and the answer is no) aeaweb.org/joe/listing.php?J…
🤖 Can AI be an inventor? That’s the legal question.
The #economic question is admittedly harder: if AI makes invention cheaper and scalable, should #patents still protect machine-generated inventions?
We explore this question in #ThePatentist
thepatentist.com/p/patents-a…
💸 Patent fees are not just administrative charges.
They shape who enters the patent system, how applications are drafted and prosecuted, and when unused rights fall into the public domain.
My new article on The Patentist: open.substack.com/pub/thepat…
#innovation #IP #patent
#Standards make compatibility mandatory. That changes patent #licensing.
👉 New on The #Patentist: Part II on SEPs/FRAND: hold-up vs hold-out, injunction leverage, royalty stacking, and why patent pools can help.
thepatentist.com/p/when-stan…
Glad to see that our paper is finally out! Have fun playing with the data 🤓
A dataset of scientific citations in U.S. patent Office Actions nature.com/articles/s41597-0…
#Standards (Wi-Fi, 5G…) make products interoperable—but they can also create lock-in. That’s where #SEP & #FRAND come in: bargaining shifts from ex-ante competition to ex-post leverage.
👉 New on The Patentist thepatentist.com/p/when-stan…
#patents #innovation #thepatentist
🤓 New on #ThePatentist: Patent rights and cumulative innovation: Part II
When judges randomly invalidate patents, libraries open, or inventions are kept secret 🤐, what really happens to follow-on innovation? We dig into the empirical literature.
thepatentist.com/p/patent-ri…
Gaétan de Rassenfosse retweeted
🚨 Working paper alert 🚨
I am happy to share the working paper
“When the Patent Quid Pro Quo is Distorted: Protection-Disclosure Imbalance and Follow-on Innovation”
Link: dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5930…
🔎 The #nationaltreatment principle requires that foreign patentees receive the same legal treatment as domestic ones. But is that the case? 🤔
Not really.
Read what the evidence says on the new post on #ThePatentist: thepatentist.com/p/national-…
📢 I am hiring!
🎓 Looking for a bright Ph.D. student in the economics of innovation. Anyone with a quantitative background is welcome to apply.
➡️ Details at epfl.ch/labs/stip/openpositi…
Patent citations are everywhere in innovation research. But do they really trace how ideas spill over between inventors—or are we mistaking legal paperwork for knowledge flows? 🧐
New on #ThePatentist: thepatentist.com/p/patent-ci…
#patents #innovation #spillovers
Gaétan de Rassenfosse retweeted
From @gderasse, I hear the USPTO Office of Chief Economist has been shut. This was an incredibly high-value, cheap program for improving US innovation. Simple internal experiments + better access to data on how patents work from a small team. Friends in DC - this is worth fixing!
Gaétan de Rassenfosse retweeted
📢 Conference announcement!
Paolo Surico and I are excited to be organizing this @cepr_org conference on Public Policies for Innovation.
If you work in the #Economics of #Innovation and #InnovationPolicy, please submit + spread the word. Non-presenting attendees also invited.
📢#CallForPapers - Conference on Public Policies for #Innovation
@ESRC @LBS @DukeFuqua and CEPR invite submissions for a conference on Public Policies for Innovation @LBS on 19-20 March 2026.
ow.ly/fLn750X0ML3
Organisers: Paolo Surico @LBS & @daniel_p_gross
#EconTwitter
🔎 Do more #patent citations mean better inventions?
A common metric in #innovation research—but not always well understood. New post on #ThePatentist reviews the evidence, from expert ratings and market prices to auction data and hybrid corn yields.
👉 thepatentist.com/p/patent-ci…
Gaétan de Rassenfosse retweeted
Happy to announce our next i3 Upskilling session, Thursday August 21 at noon (New York time / EDT).
➡️"Using Large Language Models without Blowing Your Research Budget"⬅️
Hosts: Navid Asgari (Fordham) and Deepak Nayak (OSU)
Register here: cornell.zoom.us/meeting/regi…