Patent value indicators and technological innovation

I provide empirical evidence that patent value indicators can identify technological innovation among inventors and small- and medium-sized enterprises in Sweden. Survey data on the commercialization of patents are related to patent value indicators (patent renewal, patent family size and forward citations) from archival sources. Among the patent value indicators, both the length of patent renewal and the size of the patent family indicate that a patent has been commercialized. Patent renewal for at least 6 years is sufficient to predict an accurate probability of commercialization. Furthermore, patent renewal is the only indicator revealing whether commercialization is successful. Forward citations have a moderate relationship with both commercialization and successful innovation, which may reflect the fact that citations are outside the control of the patentees or that forward citations measure spillovers rather than the private value. Although the correlations of the patent value indicators with technological innovation are noisy, this study provides stronger empirical support for the true relative value of different indicators with respect to innovation.