The main objective of this paper is to analyse patent portfolio behaviour in food and beverage multinationals (FBMs). In order to investigate the way food and beverage multinationals combine in house their various technological capabilities we analyse a panel of 18,611 utility (technical) patents and 1,359 design patents granted to such enterprises in the US during 1969-94. The methodology is based in the calculation of bivariate nonparametric correlations between the number of food patents and the number of patents granted in each of 10 non-core fields. Food patenting is positively associated with patenting in four technical fields: Biotechnology, Chemicals, Machinery and Other patents. The results are recurrent across different groups of firms classified by home-country, though the intensity of the statistical association varies. We recalculate the correlations for different sub-samples and observe that results are statistically robust. Finally, we identify the five most important innovators in the 11 technical fields and in design innovation for food packaging.
multinational food and beverage firms; food industry; innovation; patents
