Monetary and implicit incentives of patent examiners

Langinier, Corinne; Marcoul, Philippe

doi:10.1016/j.jeconbus.2020.105906

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 33 publications

(46 reference statements)

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“…Second, the granting examiner's decision-making may be affected by career concerns (Langinier and Marcoul, 2020). Promotions at the EPO are based on a bi-annual performance evaluation, which includes quality of examination (Friebel et al, 2006).…”

Section: Instrumental Variablementioning

confidence: 99%

Patents, Freedom to Operate, and Follow-on Innovation: Evidence from Post-Grant Opposition

Gaessler,

Harhoff,

Sorg

et al. 2024

Management Science

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We study the blocking effect of patents on follow-on innovation by others. We posit that follow-on innovation requires freedom to operate (FTO), which firms typically obtain through a license from the patentee holding the original innovation. Where licensing fails, follow-on innovation is blocked unless firms gain FTO through patent invalidation. Using large-scale data from post-grant oppositions at the European Patent Office, we find that patent invalidation increases follow-on innovation, measured in citations, by 16% on average. This effect exhibits a U-shape in the value of the original innovation. For patents on low-value original innovations, invalidation predominantly increases low-value follow-on innovation outside the patentee’s product market. Here, transaction costs likely exceed the joint surplus of licensing, causing licensing failure. In contrast, for patents on high-value original innovations, invalidation mainly increases high-value follow-on innovation in the patentee’s product market. We attribute this latter result to rent dissipation, which renders patentees unwilling to license out valuable technologies to (potential) competitors. This paper was accepted by Ashish Arora, entrepreneurship and innovation. Funding: This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [Collaborative Research Center TRR 190]. F. Gaessler acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D [Barcelona School of Economics CEX2019-000915-S]. Supplemental Material: The online appendices and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2019.02294 .

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Section: Instrumental Variablementioning

confidence: 99%

Patents, Freedom to Operate, and Follow-on Innovation: Evidence from Post-Grant Opposition

Gaessler,

Harhoff,

Sorg

et al. 2024

Management Science

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“…Lemley and Sampat (2008) investigate whether examiner characteristics affect the outcome of the examination process. Friebel et al (2006), and Langinier and Marcoul (2009) consider the organizational practices and incentive mechanisms adopted by patent offices to gauge examiners' productivity. Lemley (2001) investigates the USPTO resources allocated to patent examination and argues that a patent office should not devote too much resources to ensuring a high-quality examination because there are too many patents with no economic value.…”

Section: State Of the Art On Patent Qualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Decoding patent examination services

Gimeno-Fabra

Potterie

2020

Economics of Innovation and New Technology

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This paper puts forward a new methodology to characterize and compare the examination practice of most patent offices. The methodology codifies public information into a typology of chronological key examiner actions. This approach translates into a quantitative characterization of search completeness (i.e., classification and citation practices), certainty, speed, and stringency, or grant rate. The methodology is tested on a sample of 100 random families of a non-controversial field, comprising EPO, JPO and USPTO members. The results show profound differences across offices in respect to search completeness, certainty, and speed and indicate heterogeneous levels of stringency.

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The Benefit of the Doubt: Patent Examination Under Strategic Obfuscation

Figueroa,

Lemus

2023

Management Science

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An applicant privately observes the value of an idea and files a patent application. After the examination, the patent examiner may not find conclusive evidence of the idea’s value. In this case, granting a patent can be the right decision or a mistake. Moreover, it can prompt obfuscation—effort to disrupt communication—by the applicant, reducing allocative efficiency. We show there is more obfuscation when examiners are more lenient, and we provide an empirical exercise supporting this conclusion. We also show that more examination resources do not prevent and may lead to more obfuscation. This result continues to hold when applicants can invest in knowledge to increase their chances of having good ideas. We also show that there is less obfuscation when good ideas are harder to find. This paper was accepted by Ilia Tsetlin, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: N. Figueroa gratefully acknowledges financial support from ANID PIA/APOYO AFB220003. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.00140 .

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Monetary and implicit incentives of patent examiners

Cited by 6 publications

References 33 publications

Patents, Freedom to Operate, and Follow-on Innovation: Evidence from Post-Grant Opposition

Patents, Freedom to Operate, and Follow-on Innovation: Evidence from Post-Grant Opposition

Decoding patent examination services

The Benefit of the Doubt: Patent Examination Under Strategic Obfuscation

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