Value Expressions in Patents: Their Relationship to Patent Valuation and Technological Orientation
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Pelaez, Sergio
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Abstract
This dissertation examines the role and influence of value expressions (VEs)—defined as broad, optional, and narrative statements that highlight societal or commercial implications or potential benefits—in patent documents, focusing on their relationship to patent value and technological orientation. The study employs an explanatory sequential design that begins with a quantitative phase employing state-of-the-art natural language processing techniques. This includes using a generative language model, GPT-4o, to generate high-quality labeled examples, fine-tuning a discriminative language model, RoBERTa Large, on these examples, and deploying the fine-tuned model to classify sentences across the entire patent database. Regression analysis is then used to test hypotheses about the relationship between VEs, patent value, and technological orientation. The quantitative phase is followed by a qualitative analysis consisting of 12 semi-structured interviews comprising four inventors, five patent attorneys, two patent examiners, and one linguistics scholar, to explore the mechanisms guiding the observed relationships.
The study analyzes a database of 175,730 US artificial intelligence and nanotechnology patents and patent applications filed between 2005 and 2023, equivalent to approximately 7.1 million sentences. Patent IDs and metadata, including patent value indicators, were obtained from InnovationQ+ using expert-validated Boolean search strategies, while background and summary text sections, used to extract VEs, were downloaded from the USPTO's PatentsView database. The mapping of patents to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) based on their technology classification, used to create a measure of technological orientation with the categories socially oriented or not, was provided by LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions.
The research reveals significant findings about the prevalence and nature of VEs in patents. Analysis shows that 70% of patents contain private value expressions (PRIVEs, which highlight commercial implications), 59% have public value expressions (PVEs, which emphasize societal implications), and 24% include expressions combining both public and private values in a single statement (PVE-PRIVEs). The study finds a strong positive association between PVEs and traditional indicators of patent value, including forward citations (measuring technological impact), family size (indicating global reach), technology classes (reflecting technological breadth), and claims count (representing legal scope). This relationship holds across different regression models and remains robust in various sensitivity tests.
To assess whether VEs genuinely reflect the underlying technological potential of inventions or serve primarily as rhetorical devices, the research examines the relationship between these narrative elements and the technical features of patents as measured by their technology classification. Specifically, it analyzes the alignment between different types of VEs and the technological orientation of patents, operationalized through the mapping of technology classes to SDGs to identify socially oriented patents. The results demonstrate that patents containing PVEs show a positive association with social orientation, while PRIVEs show a negative association. Notably, patents containing sentences that include both public and private value expressions (PVE-PRIVEs) demonstrate the strongest positive relationship with social orientation.
Through interviews with patent attorneys, examiners, inventors, and a linguist, the study reveals that VEs in general, but more specifically PVEs, serve both normative and instrumental roles. While PVEs often originate from inventors' materials and provide a means for inventors to demonstrate their alignment with contemporary science, technology, and innovation norms, they are strategically placed by patent attorneys to enhance patent value through mechanisms such as demonstrating utility, avoiding admitting prior art, and broadening scope. The interviews helped conceptualize these dynamics through the notion of "societal value embedding," which explains how inventors and patent drafters incorporate narratives of societal impact into patents, simultaneously aligning with contemporary norms while potentially enhancing patent value.
The dissertation makes several key contributions. Methodologically, it introduces a novel approach using generative language models to analyze unstructured data and complex concepts in patent text at scale, and more generally abstract social science concepts in written text. Theoretically, it advances understanding of how and why value-based statements manifest in the patent system and relate to both patent value and technological orientation. The findings have significant implications for science, technology, and innovation policy, suggesting that patent documents can serve as valuable tools for anticipating and monitoring the societal impacts of emerging technologies. The study concludes by outlining policy implications and future research directions, emphasizing how patent offices could play a more active role in facilitating the analysis of societal impacts through structured approaches to documenting broader impacts in patent applications.
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Date
2025-01-07
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Dissertation