In Short:

Presenting a public, consolidated data series measuring U.S. government-funded patents — including funding agencies — through 2020.

Abstract

We introduce new historical administrative data identifying U.S. government-funded patents since the early twentieth century. In addition to the funding agency, the data report whether the government has title to the patent (“title” patents) or funded a patent assigned to a private organization (“license” patents). The data include a large number of “license” patents that cannot be linked to government funding from patent text or other sources. Combining the historical data with modern administrative sources, we present a public, consolidated data series measuring U.S. government-funded patents — including funding agencies — through 2020, and we provide code to extend this series in the future. We use the data to document long-run patterns in U.S. government-funded patents and federal patent policy, propose ways in which these data can be used in future research, and discuss limitations of the data.

About the author

Bhaven Sampat

Professor, School of Government and Policy and Carey Business School

Bhaven N. Sampat is an economist focusing on the economics, law, history, and political economy of science and technology.