¹Rutgers Business School, Newark-New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

Correspondence: Michelle Gittelman, Rutgers Business School, Newark-New Brunswick, NJ, USA. E-mail: michelle.gittelman@business.rutgers.edu

Abstract

This paper is an important contribution to the growing literature on the meaning of patent data. Its core findings should become part of the vernacular in empirical research using patents as measures of innovation. A startling finding is that commonly used patent-based proxies for value capture less than 5% of variation in value as reported by inventors. The results stand as a call for further exploration of the complex social and institutional processes by which patents are made. In this comment, I reflect on the main findings and their implications for what we know – and have yet to learn – about the value of patents and the meaning of patent data in innovation studies.