Chapter 18: Patent data and how it can be matched to (family) firm data: an example and a guideline

 Patents are temporary exclusive rights granted by the government for inventions in exchange for public disclosure. They are considered a proxy for technological innovation and are used in many disciplines ranging from economics and management to regional science. Yet, research on family firm innovation has only recently started to use patent data. The use of patent data in firm-level studies is complex and requires a careful and time-consuming matching process between patent and firm data. Our paper describes this process in detail and presents a guideline organized in seven steps. We illustrate our matching process using a sample of more than 10,000 German mid-sized family and nonfamily firms. We hope that our paper makes the matching process more transparent and helps future researchers on family firm innovation who would like to use patent data.