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Cited by 302

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 49 of the 49 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Lens or Prism? Patent Citations as a Measure of Knowledge Flows from Public Research

Open access
Roach, Michael, Cohen, Wesley M.·2013·Management Science
DOI 10.1287/mnsc.1120.1644
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Abstract

This paper assesses the validity and accuracy of firms' backward patent citations as a measure of knowledge flows from public research by employing a newly constructed data set that matches patents to survey data at the level of the research and development lab. Using survey-based measures of the dimensions of knowledge flows, we identify sources of systematic measurement error associated with backward citations to both patent and nonpatent references. We find that patent citations reflect the codified knowledge flows from public research, but they appear to miss knowledge flows that are more private and contract based in nature, as well as those used in firm basic research. We also find that firms' patenting and citing strategies affect patent citations, making citations less indicative of knowledge flows. In addition, an illustrative analysis examining the magnitude and direction of measurement error bias suggests that measuring knowledge flows with patent citations can lead to substantial underestimation of the effect of public research on firms' innovative performance. Throughout our analyses we find that nonpatent references (e.g., journals, conferences, etc.), not the more commonly used patent references, are a better measure of knowledge originating from public research. This paper was accepted by Lee Fleming, entrepreneurship and innovation.

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Metadata

Authors
Roach, M., & Cohen, W. M.
Venue
Management Science
Publisher
Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
Published
2013-02
Volume
59
Issue
2
Pages
504-525
ISSN
  • 0025-1909 (ISSN-L)
  • 1526-5501
DOI
10.1287/mnsc.1120.1644
OpenAlex
W2035687655
Cited by
302
References
49
FWCI
34.90
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Lens or Prism? Patent Citations as a Measure of Knowledge Flows from Public Research. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1287/mnsc.1120.1644
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Roach, M., & Cohen, W. M. (2013). Lens or Prism? Patent Citations as a Measure of Knowledge Flows from Public Research. Management Science. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1120.1644

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.