The Patenting Performance of 1,000 Inventors During Ten Years
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2198181 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lowell Juilliard Carr (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1932 |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 569-580 |
| Publication date | 1932-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-9602 • E-ISSN: 1537-5390 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/215795 |
| OpenAlex | W2059760867 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Patents, despite obvious limitations, form valuable indexes of one type of cultural change. A study of a random sample of 1,000 patentees from the alphabetical index of 1916 shows that they and their 169 partners averaged 1.13 patents in 1916. During the ten years up to and including 1925 the 1,000 patentees were credited with 3,457 patents. Probably 195,000 patentees were active in the United States during this decade. More than half of them took out only one patent. The two most prolific individuals in the sample produced 83 per cent as many patents as Edison during the same ten years. Compared with Lotka's figures on the productivity of physicists and chemists, inventors seem somewhat more given to multiple patenting than do scientists to multiple contributions. Lines of trend are worked out to show the tendency of patentees to reappear in later years. The line of best fit, checked against actual reappearances in 1930, shows an error of prediction of approximately one sigma, or about 10 per cent
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,04 |
| Citation span | 1945 - 2014 (70) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |