Collaborative Research: RAPID: Developing Real Time Metrics on the Effects of ARRA Investments on Technological Invention

《2009年美国复苏和再投资法案》（ARRA）包括大量旨在促进科学和工程创新的公共投资。决策者以及科学和工程界在评估这些投资的有效性方面面临挑战。对一种类型的发明，即专利发明的分析，已经成为调查发明活动和研发投资有效性的一个行之有效的框架。几乎所有利用专利作为知识经济窗口的研究都使用了已授予专利的数据。然而，授予的专利数据可能大大低估了当前发明活动的总体水平，因为多个发明者团队和公司可能竞相开发相同的新技术，但最终只有一项努力可能成功地获得发明专利奖。专利申请可以提供更多关于整体发明活动的信息，因为它们提供了关于同时进行的研究工作的信息。该研究开发了一个专利申请数据库，并将美国专利商标局用于表征申请的技术代码与ARRA优先获得联邦研发资金的技术进行了匹配。它将授权专利数据库与申请数据相结合，通过比较成功和不成功的专利申请，提供了一个独特的机会来识别更成功的发明人，组织和地区的特征。研究的特别重点是审查的问题，什么技术进步取得了ARRA的研发投资的结果，通过比较三个结果之前和之后的ARRA资金支付。这些结果包括专利申请率，新发明者的进入，以及以前专门从事特定技术的发明者是否转向ARRA目标技术。该研究还考察了从一个想法的“构想”到提交专利申请的平均时间，在2008年不到六个月，而在五年内减少了十多个月。除了对政策辩论的智力贡献，该项目还有几个额外的影响。研究结果以简短易读的报告形式提出，以表格和图形形式显示数据和结果，供州和联邦一级的决策者参考。为研究构建的数据集和指标，以及研究结果，在网上公开。

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) included a significant amount of public investments directed at fostering innovations in science and engineering. Policy-makers, as well as the scientific and engineering communities, face a challenge in assessing the effectiveness of these investments. Analysis of one type of invention, patented inventions, has become a well-established framework for investigating inventive activity and the effectiveness of R&D investments. Nearly all the research utilizing patents as a window to the knowledge economy has used data on granted patents. However granted patent data may greatly understate the total level of current inventive activity since multiple inventor teams and firms may competing to develop the same new technology, but only one effort may ultimately be successful in obtaining a patent award for the invention. Patent applications may provide more information about overall inventive activity since they provide information about concurrent research efforts. The study develops a database on patent applications, and matches the technology codes used by the US Patent and Trademark Office to characterize applications with the technologies prioritized by ARRA to receive Federal R&D funding. It integrates a granted patent database with application data which provides a unique opportunity to identify the characteristics of more successful inventors, organizations, and regions by comparing successful and unsuccessful prior attempts at patenting. The particular focus of the research is to examine the question of what technological advances were achieved as a result of ARRA's R&D investments by comparing three outcomes before and after the disbursement of ARRA funding. These outcomes include patent application rates, the entry of new inventors, and whether inventors who had previously specialized in specific technologies shift into technologies targeted by ARRA. The research also examines the mean time from the 'conception' of an idea and the filing of a patent application, which was less than six months in 2008, and has dropped by more than ten months in five years.Beyond intellectual contributions to policy debates, this project has several additional impacts. The research results are presented as short and readable reports, built around tabular and graphical displays of data and results, and are directed at policy-makers at the State and Federal levels. The datasets and metrics constructed for the research, as well as the research results, are made publicly-available on the web.