The halo and spillover effects of the China patent award

中国专利奖的光环与溢出效应

Abstract

Research on status-related "halo effects" and biases has extensively examined how recognition influences perceptions in various fields. This paper investigates the impact of status elevation on patent recognition following a prestigious award and explores related spillover effects. Specifically, we analyze how receiving the esteemed China Patent Award—a top-level national honor—affects the awarded patent’s citation rate and the spillover effects on the award recipient and related research domains. The China Patent Award, jointly administered by the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), is the most significant national-level award recognizing innovation within authorized patents. Established in 1989 and conferred annually since 2009, this award acknowledges inventions recommended by governmental bodies, intellectual property offices, and industry associations. Evaluative criteria for the award encompass four dimensions: (1) inventiveness, practicality, and text quality of the patent; (2) originality, significance, and applicability of the technology; (3) economic benefits, market share, and protection measures; and (4) social impact, influence within the industry, and alignment with national policy goals. To examine how status elevation affects recognition, we analyze the change in the number of annual forward citations before and after the award as an indicator of patent attention and perceived value. Focusing on the period four years before the award, the award year, and four years after the award, we use longitudinal citation data to assess changes due to the award’s influence. Our dataset includes invention patents awarded between 2007 and 2014, ensuring at least four years of post-award citation data. Additionally, we employ Propensity Score Matching (PSM) to match each awarded patent with a control patent filed in the same year, closely matched in quality, technological field, and pre-award citation rate. This approach enables a reliable comparison by minimizing differences in inherent patent quality, allowing us to isolate the impact of the award on citation outcomes. Our findings reveal a significant increase in citations for awarded patents, beginning in the award year and persisting for at least four years, indicating a sustained boost in visibility and valuation within the innovation ecosystem. This "halo effect" extends beyond the awarded patent, positively affecting the award recipient’s broader work within the awarded patent’s field. For the awardees, this recognition increases the visibility and perceived importance of their research, particularly in the awarded patent’s domain. Conversely, this spillover effect is weaker for the recipient’s patents in unrelated fields, suggesting that the halo effect is domain-specific. We also investigate whether this status effect extends to patents in adjacent fields. Using primary International Patent Classification (IPC) codes and a machine-learning-based similarity index, we identify patents closely related to the awarded patents. Both methods confirm that the award generates positive spillover effects on similar patents, with the intensity of the effect correlating with the degree of similarity: the closer a patent’s content is to the awarded patent, the stronger the positive spillover effect it experiences. This finding suggests that status elevation from patent awards not only enhances attention to the awarded patents but also indirectly benefits other patents within similar research areas. Overall, our study demonstrates that the status elevation from receiving the China Patent Award not only raises the recognition and valuation of the awarded patent itself but also significantly enhances the profile of the recipient and positively impacts patents within related fields. These results highlight the potential for government-led awards to act as policy tools, providing recognition that promotes broader research and development within strategically significant fields. By strategically recognizing patents, governments may effectively guide and support innovation in targeted areas, leveraging awards as mechanisms for encouraging scientific advancement and fostering growth within high-priority sectors.