Network Structure of Innovation: Can Brokerage or Closure Predict Patent Quality?

Patents are important intellectual assets. Approaches to evaluating patent quality are mostly a posteriori uses of factual information of patent quality. This paper examines whether patent quality can be predicted a priori, i.e., at an early stage after a patent is granted by analyzing information embedded in a network of patent citations. Social network analysis was applied to analyze two complementary network positions occupied by a patent - brokerage and closure - to determine whether either position predicts patent quality. Differences in patent citation counts and maintenance years were adopted as surrogates of patent quality. The analytical results showed that higher brokerage value can lead to higher increments of patent citation counts; higher closure value can lead to longer maintenance. The interactive effect of brokerage and closure position was confirmed. These analytical results imply that a company should focus on developing patents that bridge different technologies as technology development reaches maturity.