Resumo

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the number of patents and the increase of income. A secondary aim is to verify the lag between the patent application and the resulting income. We analyzed data from worldwide companies that more invested in research and development during 2017. When adjusting to a linear regression model, we found a positive association between patent and income. Investigating this correlation in different years, our findings have shown that oscillation can be observed, meaning that reaches its peak in three years after patenting.

Through Chu & Cozzi (2018) study, the relevance of research and development is highlighted for the technology generation and progress, mostly for the premise of economic growth for the patent’s application holders. Rassenfosse, Guellec, & de la Potterie (2008) and Moehrle, Walter, & Wustmans (2017), corroborate with the study that patent licensing is a factor fomenting income growth for companies. In this sense, the aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between patents and the increase of income, as well as to verify the lag between patents application and income.

The theoretical foundation is about Innovation and Patents, Research and Development and Design of Product Development.

The data used was taken from the database Global Innovation 1000, from strategies consultant PricewaterhouseCoopers. The patent data were extracted from the worldwide patents database European Patent Office. We limited our investigation to companies of manufacturing sector. Based on the aim to perform an empirical research concerning the correlation between patents and corporate performance by income, this paper tests nthe followig hypotheses: H1: The number of patents associated with the company income. H2: There is a lag between patenting and increasing company income.

We limited our investigation to companies of manufacturing sector ensureding a sufficient number of available 165 companies. Representing 16,5% of the companies in the sample, 12% of the amount of investments in R&D and 17% of the last year researched (2017). For H1, the number of patents is significantly associated to the income (p-value regression <= 0.05). For H2, we noticed that in 2014 (highest F value) was obtained the major association between the patents of 2011 and the income variation, which suggests that 3 years after patenting, there is association peaks.

Considering patents as being potentially responsible for increasing income it was possible to correlate these efforts with the actual reality of the most innovative manufacturing companies. The results of this research show that innovative companies who invest in patenting have their incomes influenced by these efforts because there is a significant association between the number of patents and income. Furthermore, we found out that the association peaks 3 years after patenting.

Li, M., Zhang, M., Yuan, J., Zhao, M., & Zhang, M. (2015). The correlation analysis of patent output and economic efficiency in intellectual property rights intensive industries. Journal of Interdisciplinary Mathematics, 18(6), 987–1002. https://doi.org/10.1080/09720502.2015.1109337 Neuhäusler, P., Frietsch, R., Mund, C., & Eckl, V. (2016). Identifying the Technology Profiles of R&D Performing Firms — A Matching of R&D and Patent Data. International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management, 14(01), 1740003. https://doi.org/10.1142/S021987701740003X