Philanthropic supported innovation: trends, areas, and impact

Philanthropy provides substantial support for science and research—does it do the same for technology and invention? We match patenting outcomes in the United States with philanthropic organizations as listed in the Candid database and find that at least 0.2% of U.S. patenting since 1976 received philanthropic support. After matching philanthropic patents to non-philanthropic patents based on technology, time, and the number of inventors, we find that philanthropic invention is more likely to be done by smaller teams and U.S. based inventors and less likely to rely on science research and non-U.S. prior art. Renewal rates are not significantly different from non-philanthropic patents and philanthropic patents are not more likely to be in underserved areas of technology. Philanthropic supported patents receive significantly fewer future prior art citations, thus implying that philanthropy supported patents are not exceptionally valuable.