Impacts of collaboration and network indicators on patent quality: The case of Canadian nanotechnology innovation

This article studies the impact of collaboration and co-inventorship network characteristics of Canadian nanotechnology inventors on the quality of their inventions. We investigate the impact of four types of variables on patent quality, using the number of claims as a proxy for quality: (a) the presence of highly central inventors; (b) the presence of star inventors; (c) repeated collaboration; (d) international collaboration. We show that the presence of more central inventors and of stars in the research team has a positive influence on patent quality, while repeated collaboration has a negative impact. Patents owned by foreign organisations, controlling for whether assignees are firm, yields patents of higher quality. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.