Compustat Link

[jmc]

During a recent survey of what I have access to in WRDS, I found Compustat link, which makes estimated connections between patent filings and firms listed in the Compustat database. The connecting variable is GVKEY, which is a unique ID for a company.

Topic

[jmc]

Here, for example, are the number of patents gained per year for Microsoft, Google, and Facebook, from 2012 to 2019. Inspired by Chris Mouré’s new article for RECASP. Congrats, Chris!

[CM]

Thanks James! This is a great find. Do you happen to know if ‘patents gained’ refers to patents that were acquired through purchase, patents granted that were filed by the company itself, or simply patents gained by any means?

[jmc]

Hey Chris,

For now, I have no idea. The phrase “patents gained” is actually mine because the variable is a generic count of patents.

There would be ways around this problem, but a solution would likely involve digging into the details of a company.

[Blair Fix]

Very interesting, James. I look forward to digging into this data. It would have been nice to have for Chris Mouré’s new paper on the Google-Microsoft patent war.

Mouré, ‘Soft-wars: A Capital-as-Power Analysis of Google’s Differential Power Trajectory’

[jmc]

I also found a dataset that has yearly counts of patents by Compustat firm from 1980 to 2016.  https://patents.darden.virginia.edu/get-data/

Note that the researchers ask for citation.

[Author]

Replies