The Heterogeneous Impact of Academic Patent Characteristics on Firms’ Economic Performance

Many studies have proven the relevance of patent characteristics to predict firms’ economic returns. The most studied ones concern the (technological, scientific or radically new) type of knowledge embedded into the patents; the technological impact on society, measured by the forward citations; the economic value attributed by the firms to the patents, measured by their renewal and, more recently, the closeness of the patent to the firm’s technological profile. We build on this literature, focusing on a less studied topic, the characteristics associated to the academic patents held by firms and the profit stream generated by these assets. We empirically examine these research issues using longitudinal data from a cross-industry study of 712 units of observation over a recent 10-year period (1996–2007). The paper focuses on the units’ idiosyncratic effects and the heterogeneous impact of the academic patents. We analyse the effect of academic patents characteristics with a one- and a three-year time lag structure, following the literature indication that academic patents can show a different impact at medium-long term. Contrary to previous findings, what matters for academic patents to improve firms’ economic performance both at short and at long term is not their radicalness or explorative nature, but the stock of technical and scientific knowledge on which inventions are based, measured through the backward citations to patent and non-patent literature and the closeness to firm’s core technologies, in which companies have good competences and invest more resources. These results open the way to more in-depth analyses.