ABSTRACT We provide evidence on the value of patents to startups by leveraging the quasi‐random assignment of applications to examiners with different propensities to grant patents. Using unique data on all first‐time applications filed at the U.S. Patent Office since 2001, we find that startups that win the patent “lottery” by drawing lenient examiners have, on average, 55% higher employment growth and 80% higher sales growth five years later. Patent winners also pursue more, and higher quality, follow‐on innovation. Winning a first patent boosts a startup’s subsequent growth and innovation by facilitating access to funding from venture capitalists, banks, and public investors.

Abstract We study the effects of patent scope and review times on startups and externalities on their rivals. We leverage the quasi-random assignment of U.S. patent applications to examiners and find that grant delays reduce a startup’s employment and sales growth, chances of survival, access to external capital, and future innovation. Delays also harm the growth, access to external capital, and follow-on innovation of the patentee’s rivals, suggesting that quick patents enhance both inventor rewards and generate positive externalities. Broader scope increases a startup’s future growth (conditional on survival) and innovation but imposes negative externalities on its rivals’ growth and innovation. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online

We measure how patent publication affects innovation by exploiting the American Inventor’s Protection Act of 1999 (AIPA), which accelerated public disclosure of US patents by about 1.5 years. We obtain causal estimates by comparing US patents subject to AIPA with “twin” European patents that were not. Post-AIPA, US patents receive more and faster follow-on citations, indicating greater technology diffusion. Technological overlap increases between distant but related patents and decreases between highly similar patents, and patent applications are less likely to be abandoned, suggesting less duplicative R&D. Publicly listed firms exposed to 1 standard deviation longer patent grant delays increased R&D by 4% post-AIPA.