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To what extent would the rate of development and introduction of inventions decline in the absence of patent protection? To what extent do firms make use of the patent system, and what differences exist among firms and industries and over time in the propensity to patent? These questions are in need of much more study. This paper, which reports the results of an empirical investigation based on data obtained from a random sample of 100 U.S. manufacturing firms, provides new findings bearing on each of these questions.research and development, economics

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for helpful comments, and to the 76 firms that provided the basic data used in this paper. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the National Science Foundation, at Economics Day at the University of Pennsylvania, and at the 1988 annual meetings of the American Economic Association. ' Relatively few detailed studies of the contribution of academic research to industrial innovation have been carried out. Most seem to have focused on the drug industry. For example, see Mansfield et al. [15, ch. 81 and Schwartzman [24]. Also, Mushkin [26] estimated social rates of return for biomedical research, much of which is carried out at universities and colleges. In addition, Project Hindsight and the Traces study dealt with about 20 weapons systems and five major innovations, and Gellman [7] provided relevant data bearing on this topic.