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Patent Citation Analysis/Evidence
Method evidence record

Patent Citation Analysis

Patent citation analysis uses the references that patents make to earlier patents as quantitative traces of innovation value and the flow of technological knowledge. The approach was given its empirical foundation by Adam Jaffe, Manuel Trajtenberg, and Rebecca Henderson, whose 1993 Quarterly Journal of Economics study used patent citations to show that knowledge spillovers are geographically localized - inventors disproportionately build on nearby prior art. Bronwyn Hall, Adam Jaffe, and Manuel Trajtenberg's 2001 NBER work then assembled the large-scale patent-citations data file and the methodological toolkit - forward-citation counts, generality and originality indices, citation lags, and self-citation measures - that made citation analysis a standard instrument in the economics and strategy of innovation. By treating the citation network as data, researchers can measure how important an invention is, where its knowledge came from, and where it flowed.

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Source record

Citations copied verbatim from the method’s source record. No claim-level verification is inferred from them.

Patent Citation Analysis (Citations as Measures of Innovation and Knowledge Flows)
Taxonomic method record · process-pipeline / strategic-management
  • Jaffe, A. B., Trajtenberg, M., & Henderson, R. (1993). Geographic Localization of Knowledge Spillovers as Evidenced by Patent Citations. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 108(3), 577-598. · DOI 10.2307/2118401
  • Hall, B. H., Jaffe, A. B., & Trajtenberg, M. (2001). The NBER Patent Citation Data File: Lessons, Insights and Methodological Tools. NBER Working Paper 8498. · DOI 10.3386/w8498
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Related methods

Generated from the method graph and shown as machine-suggested relations — no evidence claim is inferred.

Same method familyDisruptive Innovation Analysismachine-suggested · Relational suggestion, not evidence.Used in the same domainDynamic Capabilities Measurementmachine-suggested · Relational suggestion, not evidence.Same method familyPorter's Five Forces Industry Analysismachine-suggested · Relational suggestion, not evidence.Same method familyStrategic Technology Roadmappingmachine-suggested · Relational suggestion, not evidence.

Evidence status

Sources recorded, not reviewed

Bibliographic sources are present. Claim-level evidence review has not been performed.

Sources

2 recorded citations, copied from the method source record.

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