The private value of patents by patent characteristics: evidence from Finland

I use renewal rates and fees to estimate the private value of Finnish patents by patent characteristic. I disaggregate the value estimations by applicant, patent breadth, and technology. Firm patents are 1.5 times more valuable than patents owned by individuals. This holds also when controlling for technology and breadth. There are large differences in values between technologies but in contrast to the usual assumption made in the theoretical literature, broader patents are not necessarily more valuable than narrower ones. Patent value is skewed and therefore the number of patents should be weighted by an index when measuring technological change. I construct this index for Finnish patents and find that renewing a patent one more year signals a 1.5 times more valuable patent.