Historical patent data: A practitioner's guide

I provide a primer on six recent large-scale historical patent data sets for use in innovation research. discuss how each set is constructed, the types of information included each, and quality completeness each. Throughout, emphasize when our knowledge history invention dependent source used recommendations about which most likely to be best different contexts. Overall, these paint remarkably consistent picture U.S. invention. When do disagree, differences tend minor, although highlight some important exceptions. further describe several “niche” that allow researchers study institutional contexts cannot studied using modern data. Finally, features are not available patents but patents.