Patent office governance and patent examination quality

The present paper discusses the role of quality in patent examination process from the perspective of patent offices' behavior and organization. After documenting original stylized facts, the paper presents a model in which patent offices set patent fees and the quality level of their examination process. A higher effort in the examination process enhances the patent holders' protection in the judicial system and strengthens the screening of innovations with small inventive steps. We compare the quality of the examination process for various objectives of patent offices. Patent examination quality is the highest in an office maximizing incentives to innovate and the lowest in that maximizing the number of granted patents. A rent-seeking patent office can provide good incentives to innovate if it does not set too high markups on fees.

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Document type	Article de périodique (Journal article) – Article de recherche
Access type	Accès interdit
Publication date	2013
Language	Anglais
Journal information	"Journal of Public Economics" - Vol. 104, p. 14-25 (2013)
Peer reviewed	yes
Publisher	Elsevier BV * North-Holland ((Netherlands) Amsterdam)
issn	0047-2727
Publication status	Publié
Affiliation	UCL - SSH/LIDAM/CORE - Center for operations research and econometrics
Keywords	patent system ; quality ; intellectual property ; public firm organization
Links	http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/135144[Handle] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2013.04.009[DOI]

See also
	[boreal:75386]	Patent office governance and patent system quality