The effect of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act on knowledge transfers through inventor mobility

On September 16, 2011, President Barack Obama signed the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) into law, replacing the century-old first-to-invent patent awarding system with a first-to-file rule. While prior research has documented how this reform altered firms' R&D intensity choices and patenting behavior, its impact on the labor market for inventors remains largely unexplored. This thesis addresses that gap by focusing on mobile inventors (inventors who switch firms) and examines how their mobility facilitates knowledge transfer to the hiring firm. After identifying mobile inventors, I employ the Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM) method to construct a control sample of non-mobile inventors who have not switched firms but are similar to mobile inventors in pre-mobility characteristics. Then, using a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach, I show that hiring firms increase their use of new recruits' pre-move inventions after employing them. Moreover, the impact of inventor mobility extends beyond direct use: the tacit knowledge of the new hire diffuses throughout the hiring firm and becomes part of its broader knowledge base. Finally, I examine how the AIA affects knowledge transfers through inventor mobility. Applying a novel difference-in-differences-in-differences (DiDiD) design, I find that the AIA significantly reduces the diffusion of tacit knowledge from new hires, an unintended consequence that works against the reform's objectives.