The impact of changes in assignee of cited patents on the number of patent citations

A study on the acquisition of external knowledge

Abstract

Acquisition of new knowledge from external is important for firms to generate innovation. We focused on the impact of the difference in the way of acquiring external knowledge, whether the knowledge is acquired continuously from the same firms or from various firms with changing targets, on the innovation performance. Using patent data, we analyzed the impact of changes in assignees of cited patents on the number of patent citations and clarified the difference of the impact according to the growth of the technological field. It was demonstrated the changes in assignees of cited patents had a positive impact on the number of patent citations and the changes was more important when the growth rate of the technical field was low.