IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/123085.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Patents and Dual-use Technology: An Empirical Study of the World's Largest Defence Companies

Author

Listed:
  • Acosta, Manuel
  • Coronado, Daniel
  • Ferrándiz, Esther
  • Marín, M. Rosario
  • Moreno, Pedro J.

Abstract

This paper examines the generation of technological knowledge by leading companies in the defence industry. In particular, we test whether the characteristics of large defence companies are related to both the production of different types of patents (civilian, military and mixed), and the generation of dual-use technologies. To explore these links, we rely on economic data for the top-100 defence companies from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) database, and patent information from the Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (Patstat). Our results show that the relationship between the production of civilian patents and the size of the company is positive and significant. However, this relationship does not hold for the production of military patents. Furthermore, the military commercial profile is unrelated to the generation of military patents. Regarding the involvement in dual-use technologies, firms engaged in dual-use are those with higher military sales, a greater number of employees and a larger number of patents (civilian, military and mixed) than those not engaged in dual-use. Furthermore, we found a skill effect (more involvement in dual-use per employee) in European firms compared to US firms. These findings help to identify which firms should be targeted by government policies if increasing dual-use technologies becomes a political objective.

Suggested Citation

  • Acosta, Manuel & Coronado, Daniel & Ferrándiz, Esther & Marín, M. Rosario & Moreno, Pedro J., 2018. "Patents and Dual-use Technology: An Empirical Study of the World's Largest Defence Companies," MPRA Paper 123085, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:123085
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/123085/1/MPRA_paper_123085.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhiwen Li & Oswin Aganda Anaba & Zhiqiang Ma & Mingxing Li, 2021. "Ghanaian SMEs Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evaluating the Influence of Entrepreneurial Orientation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-27, January.
    2. Mohammad Nourani & Wen‐Min Lu & Irene Wei Kiong Ting, 2020. "Vicarious warfare and dynamic efficiency of companies in the aerospace and defence industry," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(4), pages 641-650, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    dual-use technologies; patents; patent citations; large defence firms; technological knowledge;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:123085. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.