David Rand Irvin

Patents and journal papers play important roles in technological progress. Both provide archival records of innovation; both disseminate new knowledge. Beyond this, however, patents and journal papers also provide valuable credentials for innovators. To examine this in greater detail, we introduce a simple working model of systematic knowledge, and argue that patents and journal papers both make original contributions to the edifice of such knowledge. Although a patent certifies an inventor’s original contribution to knowledge, however, it is not an overarching credential, whereas a refereed journal paper is both an original contribution to knowledge and a demonstration of an investigator’s ancillary skills. Thus patents, although impressive on their own, reach their full value as credentials within a portfolio only when accompanied by other credentials that certify the ancillary skills demonstrated by journal paper authors. We conclude that the patents of inventors who have demonstrated such skills are the equal of journal papers in their value as credentials when an investigator’s portfolio is evaluated holistically rather than element-by-element. Several examples drawn from academia illuminate this interpretation. Along the way, the discussion briefly turns to a number of related aspects, including a comparison of the qualities of peer review versus patent examination, the usefulness of patents’ forward-citation counts as indicators of value, and the contributions of patent attorneys.

Abstract: Although patents and journal papers both contribute to “the edifice of knowledge,” the full value of a patent as an intellectual credential is realized when, and only when, the patent is supplemented by other credentials that certify an inventor’s ancillary skills. Such ancillary skills are those ideally taught in graduate school, and include conducting investigations according to accepted methodology, carrying written arguments logically from premises to conclusions, and relating new contributions to the existing body of knowledge.

Abstract: Two forms of Lotka’s Law appear in the literature. The first, which is the traditional form, holds that the number of authors who publish exactly N first-author papers in primary, technical journals is proportional to 1/N2. The second holds that the number of authors who publish at least N first-author papers is proportional to 1/N, based on pseudo-integration of the first. We show that the two forms are not equivalent, despite assertions claiming that they are. We also show that the median contribution of authors who publish in primary journals is one paper, but that the theoretical average number of papers-per-author is undefined.

This essay argues that although patents and journal papers have equal status as contributions to “the edifice of knowledge,” the full value of a patent as a credential is realized only when the patent is supplemented by other credentials that certify an inventor’s ancillary skills. Such ancillary skills are those ideally taught in graduate school, and include conducting investigations according to accepted methodology, carrying written arguments logically from premises to conclusions, and relating new contributions to the existing body of knowledge.

Abstract: This essay argues that although patents and journal papers have equal status as contributions to “the edifice of knowledge,” the full value of a patent as a credential is realized only when the patent is supplemented by other credentials that certify an inventor’s ancillary skills. Such ancillary skills are those ideally taught in graduate school, and include conducting investigations according to accepted methodology, carrying written arguments logically from premises to conclusions, and relating new contributions to the existing body of knowledge.

Primary-source documents archived by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the U.S. Patent Office refute the widely accepted legend that actress Hedy Lamarr and musician George Antheil invented frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) communication. Particular attention is called to the prosecution history of the seventh claim of their original patent application, which claim could well serve as the definition of FHSS. Claim 7 was properly denied by the patent office based on prior art. The six allowed claims of US patent 2,292,387 describe Lamarr and Antheil’s actual invention – a player-piano-like synchronization mechanism, not FHSS itself