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demonstrate the proof-of-concept herein using energy patents and propose it as a
candidate tool for general use for the entire patent record. This variable will add an
entirely new measure that is systematically calculable across all patents to the toolkits of
innovation researchers. This work brings innovation researchers—in clean energy as
well as other industries—closer to a measure of deployment and commercial impact.

3.2.1 Web Hit Analysis
We propose that websites and their content can contain valuable data on the value of
patents that is supplemental to citation data. The presence of a description of a patent on
a non-aggregating website requires qualitative human intervention (i.e., someone needs to
create original content that elevates the patent's unique Web presence). This investment
of time and author’s perceived value of the patent [74] is captured and codified in the
Web page. We can then count those Web pages and quantify a perception of unique
value.

For example, U.S. Patent 6,852,920, “Nano-architected/assembled solar electricity cell”
elicits 209 Web hits. While most of these URLs are patent aggregator results, others
4
provide an indication of commercial interest, such as the following portion of a
Wikipedia entry on the firm that owns the patent (italics added):

The company uses copper indium gallium diselenide—which achieves up
to 19.9% efficiency in laboratory samples [13] —to build their thin film solar
cells. The company's technology gained early industry recognition with
the presentation of a Small Times Magazine award at a leading nanotech
business event in 2005. [14] Nanosolar's solar cells have been verified by
[6]
NREL to be as efficient as 14.6% in 2006 [15] and 15.3% in 2009.
Technical details of Nanosolar's new manufacturing techniques have been
disclosed in patent applications. [17] Some information about their process
has become available in a Scientific American article (in German). [15]

Citation number 17 (other citations are Wikipedia references and omitted for brevity)
cites U.S. Patent 6,852,920 and thus provides the link to evidence that the patent is
commercially valuable and being actively developed. This Web page has been “peer
reviewed” by the open-source community [75]: the page was edited by 147 unique users
286 times from 2006 to 2010 with the most active contributor providing 12 edits to the
page.

Conversely, aggregator Web sites generally only replicate the USPTO database
information, e.g. patent title, abstract, inventors, and application and grant dates, and
provide no new signal on the value of a patent. Figure 8 illustrates systematic
relationships between the number of future prior art citations and the number of Web hits
for solar patents in 1995 (A) and in 2005 (B). As can be seen, the relationship between
citations and Web hits is positive for both aggregator and signal URLs. In the 1995
patents (8A) there exists a significant correlation between cites and aggregator URLs

4 Wikipedia. “Nanosolar.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanosolar. Accessed December 15, 2010.

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