Text matching to measure patent similarity

We propose using text matching to measure the technological similarity between patents. Technology experts from different fields validate the new similarity measure and its improvement on measures based on the United States Patent Classification System, and identify its limitations. As an application, we replicate prior findings on the localization of knowledge spillovers by constructing a case-control group of text-matched patents. We also provide open access to the code and data to calculate the similarity between any two utility patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office between 1976 and 2013, or between any two patent portfolios.status: publishe