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We propose a new method to estimate and isolate the localization of knowledge spillovers due to the physical presence of a person, using after-application but pre-grant deaths of differently located coinventors of the same patent. The approach estimates the differences in local citations between the deceased and still-living inventors at increasingly distant radii. Patents receive 26 percent fewer citations from within a radius of 20 miles around the deceased, relative to still-living coinventors. Differences attenuate with time and distance, are stronger when still-living coinventors live farther from the deceased, and hold for a subsample of possibly premature deaths. (JEL O31, O33, O34, R32)

Much work on innovation strategy assumes or theorizes that competition in innovation elicits duplication of research and that disclosure decreases such duplication. We validate this empirically using the American Inventors Protection Act (AIPA), three complementary identification strategies, and a new measure of blocked future patent applications. We show that AIPA—intended to reduce duplication, through default disclosure of patent applications 18 months after filing—reduced duplication in the U.S. and European patent systems. The blocking measure provides a clear and micro measure of technological competition that can be aggregated to facilitate the empirical investigation of innovation, firm strategy, and the positive and negative externalities of patenting.

Much work on innovation strategy assumes or theorizes that competition in innovation elicits duplication of research and that disclosure decreases such duplication. We validate this empirically using the American Inventors Protection Act (AIPA), three complementary identification strategies, and a new measure of blocked future patent applications. We show that AIPA—intended to reduce duplication, through default disclosure of patent applications 18 months after filing—reduced duplication in the U.S. and European patent systems. The blocking measure provides a clear and micro measure of technological competition that can be aggregated to facilitate the empirical investigation of innovation, firm strategy, and the positive and negative externalities of patenting.