The dynamics of the transfer and renewal of patents

This article explores new data on the transfer and renewal of U.S. patents and interprets this new evidence using a model of patent transfers and renewal. We find that the proportion of transferred patents is large and differs across technology fields and especially type of patentees. We also find that the probability of a patent being traded depends on a number of factors—the age of the patent, the number of citations received by a given age, the patent generality, and whether the patent has been previously traded or not. These findings are consistent with the predictions of a model of patent transfers and renewals.