Configuration paths to high-value patents: evidence from patents winning the China Patent Awards

Firms are seeking effective ways to cultivate high-value patents to support the goals of their innovative development, which has raised a promising research issue on different paths to high-value patents. However, prior studies mainly focused on the individual impact of a single or multiple patent attribute(s) on patent value. This study aims to explore the interactions of different patent attributes and their joint effect on high-value patents in the emerging economy context using three-dimensional patent value as the research lens. Using data from patents that won China Patent Awards as high-value patent samples and the fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), this study examines the relationships between three-dimensional patent attributes of technological, legal and economic value and high-value patents. The results demonstrate that the interactions of three-dimensional patent attributes are prerequisites for high-value patents, and four configuration paths contribute to China’s high-value patents. By interpreting multiple patent attribute interactions, this study further reveals the technological-economic complementary mechanism and the potential substitution mechanism within and among the three-dimensional patent attributes in high-value patents, and draws out implications for research, policy and practice. This study contributes to the patent value literature by adopting a configurational perspective to examine the causal complexity of patent attribute combinations, and providing a systematic understanding of the effective configuration paths to high-value patents in China as well as the complementary and substitution mechanisms between patent attributes. The findings also support better-informed patent policy and firm strategies aimed at gaining more high-value patents.