Inventor Mobility and Knowledge Transmission in Nanotechnology

Abstract

Using U.S. patent records in nanotechnology, we study the relationship between inventor mobility among firms and knowledge diffusion. We find evidence consistent with a story that, in one important nanotechnology subfield, when inventors move among firms they spread knowledge. In particular, we find that if we consider any two patents, A and B, where A and B are in the ``Chemicals, misc.'' subclass, A and B are assigned to different firms and where A is granted after B, patent A is more likely to cite patent B if the patent A firm employs an inventor who earlier worked for the patent B firm.