Patent Statistics as an Innovation Indicator? Evidence from the Hard Disk Drive Industry

Abstract

We assess the usefulness of patent statistics as an indicator of innovation, using a direct measure of innovation in the hard disk industry (1976–1998). Three findings emerge: (i) patents “predict” innovations better than a random guess, and a simple refinement makes them more useful; (ii) conditional on actually innovating, conglomerates and larger firms patent more than specialised startups and smaller firms; and (iii) patent reforms seem to make the patent–innovation relationship nonstationary. These results suggest that researchers should use caution when comparing patents of different types of firms and across years.

Mergers and innovation: Evidence from the hard disk drive market

“…More recently, focusing on a group of low-and medium technology industries in Spain, Santamaría, Nieto, and Barge-Gil (2009) also show how many activities that lead to innovation are not R&D-based. Finally, a recent study of patent statistics particularly relevant to our own case study, Igami and Subrahmanyam (2015), warns "researchers to use caution when comparing patents of different types of firms and across years. "…”

IPR-aineistojen mahdollisuuksia, replikointitarpeita ja teknisiä haasteita

“…Patenttien määrä on perinteinen innovaatiotoiminnan mittari (Griliches 1990;Nagaoka ym. 2010;Igami & Subrahmanyam 2019), mutta paljon on kiinnitetty huomiota myös patenttien "laatuun", jonka mittaaminen ei ole yksiselitteistä (Higham ym. 2021).…”

“…Griliches 1990;Motohashi ym. 2010;Igami & Subrahmanyam 2019), joista tässä nostetaan esiin vain muutama.…”

“…Ensinnäkin, patentit ovat epätarkka innovaatiotoiminnan mittari (Griliches 1990;Nagaoka ym. 2010;Igami & Subrahmanyam 2019). Kaikille teknisille keksinnöille ei haeta patentteja vaan vain osalle.…”

Codes in Code: AIE Supramolecular Adhesive Hydrogels Store Huge Amounts of Information

“…The development of hard disks has gone through four important stages. [ 6,7 ] The first stage was the birth of the first hard disk: in 1956, the world's first hard disk was designed and manufactured by International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation, named IBM 350 RAMAC, which was equivalent to the size of two refrigerators and had a storage capacity of only 5 megabytes (MB). [ 8,9 ] The second stage was the development of Winchester technology: in 1968, IBM successfully developed the Winchester technology, and in 1973, IBM 3340 came out, which had two 30 MB storage units.…”