Patents as intangible assets are subjects of burgeoning empirical research. However, there is limited knowledge of how patent quality and patent value can be conceptualized, distinguished, and related. Distinguishing these concepts and relating them in a theoretical framework would enable the assessment and improvement of patent quality, which has implications for all the stakeholders in patents. We ground this study in the emergent ex-ante theory of patent value and conduct a systematic review of 340 papers that investigate patent quality or value. Based on a comparative analysis of the patentability standards adopted by the patent offices in the United States, Europe, and Japan, we delineate four dimensions of patent quality—subject matter, utility, non-obviousness or inventive step, and sufficiency of disclosure. Our study contributes to theory by providing an elaborated conceptual model that relates the different dimensions of patent quality and patent value and mapping the different types of indicators of patent quality and value onto the corresponding patent quality or value dimensions. Our study suggests that patent policymakers can incentivize innovators to file patent applications of high quality, which would reduce the incidence of poor-quality patents in the system and improve the efficiency and reputation of the patent office.

中文翻译：

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分而治之：在基于系统审查的概念框架中关联专利质量和价值

专利作为无形资产是新兴实证研究的主题。然而，对于如何概念化、区分和关联专利质量和专利价值，人们知之甚少。区分这些概念并将它们与理论框架联系起来将能够评估和提高专利质量，这对专利的所有利益相关者都有影响。我们以新兴的专利价值事前理论为基础，对 340 篇研究专利质量或价值的论文进行了系统回顾。基于对美国、欧洲和日本专利局采用的可专利性标准的比较分析，我们界定了专利质量的四个维度：主题、实用性、非显而易见性或创造性以及公开的充分性。我们的研究通过提供一个详细的概念模型，将专利质量和专利价值的不同维度联系起来，并将不同类型的专利质量和价值指标映射到相应的专利质量或价值维度，对理论做出了贡献。我们的研究表明，专利政策制定者可以激励创新者提交高质量的专利申请，这将减少系统中低质量专利的发生率，并提高专利局的效率和声誉。