Differential Impact of Open Access Models on Patent Citations

Determine the differential impact of open access publication models—gold (fully open access), green (repository-based open access), and hybrid—on the likelihood and rate of patent citations to scientific journal articles, and elucidate the mechanisms underlying these differences while accounting for confounding factors such as journal quality and institutional policies.

Background

The paper analyzes 117,590 research articles (2014–2023) across six disciplines and finds that access mode is a major determinant of patent citations. Regression results indicate that green and hybrid open access are positively associated with patent citations, while gold open access shows a negative association, conditional on other factors.

In the conclusions, the authors stress that these associations are correlational and highlight that the mechanisms driving differences across open access models have not been convincingly elucidated. They explicitly note that the differential impact of gold, green, and hybrid models remains open to debate and that potential confounders—such as journal quality and institutional policies—have not been adequately considered, motivating a clear open question about the true impact and causal pathways of open access models on patent citation outcomes.