Yong-Gil Lee

An in-depth empirical analysis of patent citation counts using zero-inflated count data model: The case of KIST

Patent citation counts represent an aspect of patent quality and knowledge flow. Especially, citation data of US patents contain most valuable pieces of the information among other patents. This paper identifies the factors affecting patent citation counts using US patents belonging to Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). For patent citation count model, zero-inflated models are announced to handle the excess zero data. For explanatory factors, research team characteristics, invention-specific characteristics, and geographical domain related characteristics are suggested. As results, the size of invention and the degree of dependence upon Japanese technological domain significantly affect patent citation counts of KIST.

What affects a patent’s value? An analysis of variables that affect technological, direct economic, and indirect economic value: An exploratory conceptual approach

The paper investigates three aspects of patent value - technological value, direct economic value, and indirect economic value. The paper suggests that we measure the technological value of a patent by looking at its number of citations, direct economic value by looking at its licensing and income from royalties, and indirect economic value by looking at its life (i.e., duration). For the research, the author’s two previous studies are deeply explored. It is found that these three aspects of patent value are positively correlated with one another. In addition, their domains overlap and interrelate. Research collaboration is the one variable found to have a significant effect on all three aspects. The field effect of electronics positively affects technological and indirect economic value, whereas research team size negatively affects technological and indirect economic value.

Patent licensability and life: A study of U.S. patents registered by South Korean public research institutes

The quality and value of a patent can be represented by several proxies, such as how often the patent is cited in other patents, whether it is licensed, and the age of the patent. The paper uses a binary choice model to investigate factors affecting patent licensing, and it uses double-bounded tobit and duration models to investigate factors affecting patent life. Explanatory variables and dependent variables are extracted from U.S. patent information and related data. Findings suggest research collaboration has a positive effect on both patent licensing and patent life. Other characteristics such as invention size, namely, the scope of the invention measured by number of claims, and organizational technological cumulativeness, measured by self-citation counts, also affect patent life.

Different characteristics between auctioned and non-auctioned patents

In recent years, firms have increased their use of internal and external knowledge through intermediaries. Knowledge brokers match buyers and sellers in the technology marketplace as well as connect and combine existing knowledge. We discuss how financial incentives in the technology marketplace can address challenges to open innovation, and how the marketplace could make individual inventors essential contributors. And then, we identify the key determinants of intellectual-property auction bids and different characteristics of auctioned and non-auctioned patents. Relevance, the scope of patents, and other factors suggested in the literature impact patent auctions, as mediated by knowledge brokers.

Which is better for a firm's financial performance: An externally oriented or inwardly oriented innovation strategy? An empirical study on Korean SMEs

Summary Research in the field of innovation shows that companies today often rely on interactions with users, suppliers, and other external sources when it comes to seeking innovative practices. Many studies find that this “open” innovation search model contrasts favorably with the inward‐oriented model of the past, although many of these studies still rely on the traditional measures of output such as patent applications. The authors further this research by examining how a concrete measure of financial performance (operating profit) is related to the variables of openness and closedness in innovation strategy. Our approach is unique in the sense that we examine a sample comprising only of small and medium‐sized enterprises, categorize firms according to industry, and look at such unique variables as family control of the SME (whether the CEO and/or stockholders are family members) and the SMEs exposure in an online financial newspaper. We gather data on 215 Korean SMEs from Koreas Data Analysis, Retrieval, and Transfer System, Worldwide Intellectual Property Search, and the online newspaper Money Today. Findings include the rather surprising result that a closed innovation strategy as represented by family control of the SME relates positively to financial performance.

Identifying transverse technologies in the life sciences

Summary Transverse technologies are the technologies that have the strongest links with other innovation topics. They constitute probably a major stake for the public decision maker because they can be dominant topics in technological, knowledge‐based networks. They can form the core of the creation and diffusion processes of innovations. In other aspects, transverse technologies can be understood as common, or key, technologies. Identifying them within a technological field enhances the research and development (R&D) efficiency and policy making. This paper suggests a method for identifying transverse technologies at the institutional level from the core technology pool in the National Technology Roadmap and in the national technology forecast in Korea, which means identifying the most fundamental or key technologies in Korean public research institutes. This study suggests a method for identifying transverse technologies and illustrates the method in the field of life sciences research in Korea. Technology cluster analysis is used to find similar technologies and a proximity index of technologies is derived using the Jaccard index. According to the summed value, namely, the normalized transverse degree, hepatitis therapeutics development, presbyophernia prevention and therapy technology, and the technology of preventing Alzheimers disease are ranked as the top three most transverse technologies in Korean public research institutes.

A Study on Factors Affecting Patent Citation Counts and Patent Licensing in Chemistry Field

This paper deals with the factors affecting patent citation counts and patent licensing using US patents belonging to Korean public research institutes in chemistry field. For explanatory factors, research team related variables, invention specific variables, and geographical domain related variables are introduced. Zero inflated count data model is used for patent citation count model, and binary choice models such as Logit and Probit are used for patent licensing model. The results show that research collaboration positively affects both patent citation counts and patent licensing. Some other variables like team size, size of invention, etc. are found to be significantly related to patent citation counts