Patents as a proxy for innovation

There is a strong link between new technologies, innovations, and patents. Innovations are the commercialization of inventions or novel technological solutions. To allow for their appropriation, intellectual property rights such as patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets are used to protect companies’ proprietary knowledge. Among these, patents serve as temporary exclusive rights that allow their owners to exclude others from making, buying, or selling products and services that are based on the patent-protected inventions.

Patents serve as a comprehensive window on new technologies and their owners. With patent data being available for firms regardless of locations, industries, and legal requirements, it makes them a trustworthy source of innovation information.