Disclosure and Subsequent Innovation: Evidence from the Patent Depository Library Program

How important is access to patent documents for subsequent innovation? We examine the expansion of USPTO Patent Library system after 1975. libraries provided patents before Internet. find that library opening, local patenting increases by 8–20 percent relative similar regions. Additional analyses suggest disclosure technical information drives this effect: inventors increasingly take up ideas from outside their region, and effect strongest in technologies where are more informative. thus provide evidence plays an role cumulative innovation. (JEL D83, K11, O31, O34, R11)