Exploiting Industry 4.0: Mapping Firm Level Technology Development and Adoption across the U.S. Using Patent and Trademark Data

Abstract

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Industry 4.0 (I4), will impact economies and labour markets in pervasive and substantial ways. However, studies are still establishing how it will do so, and which technologies will account for these changes. In order to monitor I4, it is crucial to measure invention and innovation, as they are key to understanding how labour markets could be impacted by the industrial revolution. Therefore, this thesis studies how firms have been developing and adopting I4 technologies in the United States (U.S.), across space and time. I use both trademark and patent data for the period 2008-2017, addressing recent calls in the literature for combining both intellectual property rights data. Using a keyword filter, I am able to establish that patents indicate that the geography of invention is rather concentrated in certain U.S. states and cities, and that specialised firms dominate filings in core technologies. Similarly, trademark filings show that innovation diffusion is in general more spread across space even though spatial concentration in cities appears to be increasing. Additionally, the leading trademarking firms display lower shares of intellectual property rights ownership between 2008 and 2017, which suggests more spread filing activities across industries such as electronic gaming and gambling. The findings indicate that developments of I4 technologies are more concentrated than their applications both spatially and at the firm level, and further suggest mixed implications for labour markets.