Patent citation data in social science research: Overview and best practices

Abstract

The last 2 decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in the use of patent citation data in social science research. Facilitated by digitization of the patent data and increasing computing power, a community of practice has grown up that has developed methods for using these data to: measure attributes of innovations such as impact and originality; to trace flows of knowledge across individuals, institutions and regions; and to map innovation networks. The objective of this article is threefold. First, it takes stock of these main uses. Second, it discusses 4 pitfalls associated with patent citation data, related to office, time and technology, examiner, and strategic effects. Third, it highlights gaps in our understanding and offers directions for future research.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 297 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.