Word: nsf
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...numbers are real warnings," says Francis Narin, president of Computer Horizons, a consulting firm that did the patent study for the NSF. "We're in danger of losing our technological edge. We've gone soft." Herbert Wamsley, executive director of the Intellectual Property Owners, a trade group representing inventors, agrees. Says he: "The level of patenting is a sign of ) corporate virility. This is yet one more indication that America's technological leadership is slipping...
Even so, the new NSF study cannot be dismissed lightly. In the first attempt to measure the quality of patents, Computer Horizons examined how often they were cited in applications filed by later inventors. The assumption of the study: when a patent is cited frequently, that means it has had a significant impact on subsequent research. By this standard, the Japanese come out ahead. In a ranking based on how often their patents are cited, Japanese inventors scored 26% higher than their American counterparts...
Critics of the NSF study argue that not every oft cited patent will be commercially valuable. Carlos Kruytbosch, head of the NSF Science Indicators Unit, admits that a patent may be cited in later applications because it represents an important historical precedent for future inventions but the original patent may never lead to anything that can be profitably produced. Patents are more important in businesses where technology moves relatively slowly, like the pharmaceutical industry, than in fast-changing fields such as electronics and computer science...
...award is going to an economist for the first time, the NSF action should be seen as "recognizing the legitimacy of economics as a real science," Ubois said. "Some people think social science is an oxymoron...
...expect [Summers'] future research will be ahallmark of excellence," NSF director Erich Blochsaid...