Why Do Start-Ups Patent?
Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol. 23, 2008
35 Pages Posted: 16 Apr 2008 Last revised: 25 Feb 2009
Date Written: September 6, 2008
Abstract
Numerous scholars have proposed many different explanations for why inventors and innovative companies patent. Few scholars, however, have conducted empirical studies seeking to confirm or deny these theories. Furthermore, there are only a handful of studies examining how entrepreneurs and start-up companies use and are affected by the U.S. patent system, and none answers the question presented in our title. We first briefly survey the dominant theories of why innovators file for patents and why they forgo patenting, focusing on how well, if at all, these theories apply to start-up companies. Next, we examine the existing empirical data on the topic and find it generally inconclusive. Last, we describe the 2008 Berkeley Patent Survey, the first survey in the United States examining patents and entrepreneurship, which is currently underway at the direction of the authors and other investigators. In particular, we discuss the survey questions designed to answer why entrepreneurs and start-ups patent (or choose not to do so) and offer some hypotheses based on previous research.
Keywords: patent, patenting, entrepreneur, start-up, early-stage, survey
JEL Classification: O31, O32, O34, K29
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
An Empirical Look at Software Patents
By James E. Bessen and Robert M. Hunt
-
The U.S. Patent System in Transition: Policy Innovation and the Innovation Process
-
Don't Fence Me in: Fragmented Markets for Technology and the Patent Acquisition Strategies of Firms
-
By Ashish Arora, Marco Ceccagnoli, ...
-
The Private Value of Software Patents
By Bronwyn H. Hall and Megan Macgarvie
-
Patent Scope and Innovation in the Software Industry
By Mark A. Lemley and Julie E. Cohen
-
Patent Scope and Innovation in the Software Industry
By Mark A. Lemley and Julie E. Cohen
-
By Alfonso Gambardella, Dietmar Harhoff, ...