The Dynamics of the Transfer and Renewal of Patents

Abstract

This paper explores and describes the creation of a new dataset of the transfer of the ownership of patents based on patent transactions recorded at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The paper develops a number of patterns that describe the transfer of intellectual property in the form of patents. For instance, the probability of a patent trade monotonically decreases as a function of age except at the renewal dates. Immediately after renewal, this rate discontinuously increases. Among patents of the same age, the probability to be traded and the probability to be renewed is increasing in the number of citations received. Among traded patents of the same age, and in particular the recently traded, are more likely to be retraded and less likely to be allowed to expire.