Rational Ignorance at the Patent Office

Abstract

It is common to assert that the Patent

A brief history of space and time: The scope-year index as a patent value indicator based on families and renewals

“…2 Out of the myriad of potential candidates for patent value indicators or determinants, renewal data and patent families are probably the most widely recognized and used. 3 Indeed, they constitute two essential dimensions of a patent's life, its age and geographical scope respectively, which together reflect the efforts and costs incurred by patent owners to acquire and 1 See [LEMLEY, 2001], [VAN POTTELSBERGHE & FRANÇOIS, 2006] and [ for broad discussions on patent systems, their effectiveness and their cost to society. 2 REITZIG [2004] and SAPSALIS & provide in-depth surveys of this literature, including discussions on the variables used to measure the value, and the potential value determinants.…”

Endogenous licensing in cumulative innovation

“…According to Lanjouw and Schankerman (2001) and Lemley (2001), most patents do not arouse litigation. In effect, only something about 0.1% of patents needs court's verdict.…”

Patent office in innovation policy: Nobody's perfect

“…12 A few papers focus on the optimal design of these instruments by a Patent Office. Lemley (2001) argues that it is efficient to implement a low examination standard, because the costs of improving the examination process and the quality of issued patents would outweigh the cost of the mistakes currently made (the Patent Office is "rationally ignorant"). Cornelli and Schankerman (1999) and Scotchmer (1999) study the design of renewal application fees and their impact on R&D. In those articles, patent life is endogenously chosen by firms via the renewal application fee.…”