EVIDENCE FROM PATENTS AND PATENT CITATIONS ON THE IMPACT OF NASA AND OTHER FEDERAL LABS ON COMMERCIAL INNOVATION

Federal lab commercialization is explored: (1) by analyzing US governm ent patents and (2) in a qualitative analysis of one NASA lab's patent s. Tests apply to three distinct sets of patents, 1963-94: NASA, all o ther US government, and a random sample of all US inventors' patents. The federal patenting rate plummeted in the 1970s. Consistent with inc reasing commercialization, both NASA's and other federal agencies' rat es recovered in the 1980s. The case study finds citations to be a vali d but noisy measure of technology spillovers. Excluding 'spurious' cit es, two-thirds of cites to patents of NASA-Lewis' Electro-Physics Bran ch were evaluated as involving spillovers.