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arXiv · 1902.05265

Ex-ante measure of patent quality reveals intrinsic fitness for citation-network growth

K. W. Higham·M. Governale·A. B. Jaffe·U. Zülicke
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Abstract

We have constructed a fitness parameter, characterizing the intrinsic attractiveness for patents to be cited, from attributes of the associated inventions known at the time a patent is granted. This exogenously obtained fitness is shown to determine the temporal growth of the citation network in conjunction with mechanisms of preferential attachment and obsolescence-induced ageing that operate without reference to characteristics of individual patents. Our study opens a window on understanding quantitatively the interplay of the rich-gets-richer and fit-gets-richer paradigms that have been suggested to govern the growth dynamics of real-world complex networks.

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K. W. Higham, M. Governale, A. B. Jaffe, U. Zülicke. 2019-02-14. Ex-ante measure of patent quality reveals intrinsic fitness for citation-network growth. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.99.060301

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