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

Many studies have proven the relevance of patent characteristics topredict firms' economic returns. The most studied ones concern the (technological,scientific or radically new) type of knowledge embedded into the patents; thetechnological impact on society, measured by the forward citations; the economicvalue attributed by the firms to the patents, measured by their renewal and, morerecently, the closeness of the patent to the firm's technological profile. We build onthis literature, focusing on a less studied topic, the characteristics associated to theacademic patents held by firms and the profit stream generated by these assets. Weempirically examine these research issues using longitudinal data from a crossindustrystudy of 712 units of observation over a recent 10-year period(1996-2007). The paper focuses on the units' idiosyncratic effects and the heterogeneousimpact of the academic patents. We analyse the effect of academic patentscharacteristics with a one- and a three-year time lag structure, following the literatureindication 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 orexplorative nature, but the stock of technical and scientific knowledge on whichinventions are based, measured through the backward citations to patent andnon-patent literature and the closeness to firm's core technologies, in which companieshave good competences and invest more resources. These results open the wayto more in-depth analyses.