This paper has two objectives. First, it describes a new database mapping migratory patterns of inventors, extracted from information included in patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. It explains in detail the information contained in the database and discusses the usefulness and reliability of the underlying data. Second, the paper provides a descriptive overview of inventor migration patterns, based on the information contained in the newly constructed database.

This paper discusses the existing literature on migration and innovation, with special emphasis on empirical studies based on patent and inventor data. Other sources of micro-data are examined, too, for comparative purposes. A pilot database, based on patent filings at the European Patent Office is presented. It contains information on individual inventors, including their country of residence and of origin. Preliminary evidence suggests that immigrant inventors contribute to innovation not only in the United States, but also in selected European countries, where they often rank among the most productive individuals.

Today’s production processes are fragmented across countries and industries. Intangibles play an important role, but their measurement is elusive. This paper proposes a new empirical framework to measure factor incomes in production that spans industries and countries.

This paper has two objectives. First, it describes a new database mapping migratory patterns of inventors, extracted from information included in patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. We explain in detail the information contained in the database and discuss the usefulness and reliability of the underlying data. Second, the paper provides a descriptive overview of inventor migration patterns, based on the information contained in the newly constructed database. Among the largest receiving countries, we find that the United States exhibits by far the highest inventor immigration rate, followed by Australia and Canada. European countries lag behind in attracting inventive talent; in addition, France, Germany, and the UK see more inventors emigrating than immigrating. In relation to the number of home country inventors, Central American, Caribbean and African economies show the largest inventor brain drain.

The international mobility of talented individuals is a key part of globalization. In the quest to promote innovation and entrepreneurship, many governments have sought to attract skilled migrants from abroad, inciting both a global competition for talent and concerns about the displacement of domestic workers. This important new work investigates why skilled individuals migrate and how they shape innovation around the world. Using patent data from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), it charts patterns of high-skilled migration worldwide. In addition, contributions by leading migration scholars review the latest research insights, discuss new approaches to studying high-skilled migration and present fresh evidence on the causes and consequences of greater talent mobility. This book will prove invaluable to policymakers seeking to understand how migration policy choices affect innovation outcomes as well as academic researchers interested in the migration-innovation nexus.

This paper analyzes the gender of inventors in international patent applications. We compile a worldwide gender-name dictionary, which includes 6.2 million names for 182 different countries to disambiguate the gender of PCT inventors. Our results suggest that there is a gender imbalance in PCT applications, but the proportion of women inventors is improving over time. We also find that the rates of women participation differ substantially across countries, technological fields and sectors.

In this paper, the authors describe and explore a new algorithmic approach to constructing concordances between the International Patent Classification (IPC) system and industry classification systems that organize economic data. This ‘Algorithmic Links with Probabilities’ (ALP) approach incorporates text analysis software and keyword extraction programs and applies them to a comprehensive patent dataset. The authors conclude with a discussion on some of the possible applications of the concordance and provide a sample analysis that uses their preferred ALP concordance to analyze international patent flows based on trade patterns.