Research notes · Knowledge

Does patenting a discovery stop other people building on it?

What the authors found

Sampat and Williams compare human gene sequences that were patented against near-identical sequences whose applications failed, using administrative records from the US patent office to construct the comparison. They find no evidence that gene patents reduced follow-on scientific research or product development. The intuition that a patent blocks the next researcher does not survive contact with the case where it should have been most visible.

What our data adds

The two aggregates this database holds — patent applications and scientific articles — move together at the national level in a way that tells you nothing about the causal question. China files by far the most of both, publishing 932,712 scientific articles a year; the United States publishes 430,843. Reading a positive correlation between patenting and publishing as evidence that patents encourage research would be the same error in the opposite direction from the one the paper refutes.

What this cannot show

The paper's design is a comparison between granted and rejected applications for near-identical objects, which is as close to an experiment as this literature gets and is unreachable from aggregates. National counts cannot see follow-on citation, cannot match a discovery to the work that builds on it, and cannot distinguish patents that block from patents that disclose. This note records the shape of the evidence the question needs.

The data behind it

Related notes

• When cheap imports arrive, do domestic firms innovate their way out or give up?
• Rich countries spend more on research every year. Why is measured productivity growth falling?
• How much of what gets patented rests on publicly funded science?

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