Testing ex ante and ex post patent value indicators with patent renewal information

We contribute to the literature on innovation studies by presenting a new patent renewal model to test patentvalue indicators. This paper attempts to fill a research gap of literature by constructing the dynamic model intowhich both ex ante and ex post patent value indicators are incorporated, and demonstrating especially the effectsof forward citations. The model is tested for a large set of Pharmaceutical patents granted by the EuropeanPatent Office between 1996 and 2009. We test five ex ante indicators and single ex post indicator includingfamily size, patent backward citations, backward references to non-patent literature, number of claims, numberof inventors, and the ex post indicator -forward citations. Empirical findings show that three citation relatedindicators, family size, and the number of claims are positively associated with patent values, while the numberof inventors are negatively correlated. In addition, forward citations seem to have persistent learning effects onpatent values.

Keywords:

patent value , patent renewal model , ex ante indicators , ex post indicators , learning effects , pharmaceutical technology field