Value and barriers in the creation of intellectual property in advanced manufacturing: a country comparison

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine to what extent small sized and periphery-located firms compensate the comparative disadvantages of big centrally located firms, through patent ownership agreements with other agents, notably research institutes. Design/methodology/approach The authors develop an empirical study of patents from two completely different economic areas, a central and a peripheral one, represented by Germany and Spain, respectively, in the domain of the Key Enabling Technology (KET) of advanced manufacturing technologies in robotics and automation. Comparing the population of 211 Spanish patents granted with a random sample of 500 German patents, from the files of the US Patent and Trademark Office, the authors obtain and test a series of logistic regression functions taking the predicted possibilities to develop patents with more citations, as a proxy for their value. Findings Whereas big companies from central locations do not obtain more heavily cited patents from sharing their R&D activity with other firms or research institutes, smaller manufacturing firms in peripheral areas, namely, Spain, may find this advantageous. Additionally, patents containing fewer cited articles and citations of previous patents, tend to be cited more frequently. Finally, this same outcome is also observed with patents showing shorter time between the application and grant. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study on patent value which examines the KET of advanced manufacturing technologies in robotics and automation, comparing a central to a peripheral geographic environment, and determining the number, diversity and size of patent assignees. The results prove relevant in general for manufacturing businesses, especially in the Machine-Tool and machinery producing industry. Overwhelmingly, these firms tend to be SMEs basing their marketing activity entirely on a Business-to-Business (B2B) focus, and facing serious obstacles for R&D activity.