The Duration of Patent Examination at the European Patent Office

Harhoff, Dietmar; Wagner, Ştefan

doi:10.1287/mnsc.1090.1069

Cited by 241 publications

(167 citation statements)

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“…Given that patent 4 A recent literature debates the relationship between patent grant lags and the importance of the innovation. While Johnson and Popp (2003) suggest that more important innovations (as proxied by forward citations) are associated with more important innovation, Harhoff and Wagner (2005) find the reverse correlation using EU patent data. See Popp et al (2004) litigation is expensive (compared to the relatively modest costs of patent application) it is not surprising that relatively few patents are litigated to a final judicial resolution: most patents never confront a full judicial review of their underlying validity or their legal scope (Lanjouw and Schankerman, 2001).…”

Section: Patent Enforcement Uncertaintymentioning

confidence: 87%

The Impact of Uncertain Intellectual Property Rights on the Market for Ideas: Evidence from Patent Grant Delays

2008

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This paper considers the impact of the intellectual property (IP) system on the timing of cooperation/ licensing by start-up technology entrepreneurs. If the market for technology licenses is efficient, the timing of licensing is independent of whether IP has already been granted. In contrast, the need to disclose complementary (yet unprotected) knowledge, asymmetric information or search costs may retard efficient technology transfer. In these cases, reductions in uncertainty surrounding the scope and extent of IP rights may facilitate trade in the market for ideas. We employ a data set combining information about cooperative licensing and the timing of patent allowances (the administrative event when patent rights are clarified). Although preallowance licensing does occur, the hazard rate for achieving a cooperative licensing agreement significantly increases after patent allowance. Moreover, the impact of the patent system depends on the strategic and institutional environment in which firms operate. Patent allowance plays a particularly important role for technologies with longer technology life cycles or that lack alternative appropriation mechanisms such as copyright, reputation, or brokers. The findings suggest that imperfections in the market for ideas may be important, and that formal IP rights may facilitate gains from technological trade. ABSTRACTThis paper considers the impact of the intellectual property (IP) system on the timing of cooperation/licensing by start-up technology entrepreneurs. If the market for technology licenses is efficient, the timing of licensing is independent of whether IP has already been granted. In contrast, the need to disclosure complementary (yet unprotected) knowledge, asymmetric information, or search costs may retard efficient technology transfer. In these cases, reductions in uncertainty surrounding the scope and extent of IP rights may facilitate trade in the market for ideas. We employ a dataset combining information about cooperative licensing and the timing of patent allowances (the administrative event when patent rights are clarified). While pre-allowance licensing does occur, the hazard rate for achieving a cooperative licensing agreement significantly increases after patent allowance. Moreover, the impact of the patent system depends on the strategic and institutional environment in which firms operate. Patent allowance seems to play a particularly important role for technologies with longer technology lifecycles or that lack alternative mechanisms such as copyright, reputation, or brokers. The findings suggest that imperfections in the market for ideas may be important, and that formal IP rights may facilitate gains from technological trade.

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Section: Patent Enforcement Uncertaintymentioning

confidence: 87%

The Impact of Uncertain Intellectual Property Rights on the Market for Ideas: Evidence from Patent Grant Delays

2008

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“…The duration of the examination procedure is, among other things, influenced by the complexity of the invention and the intensity of negotiations between the examiner and the applicant (Harhoff and Wagner, 2005).…”

Section: The Number Of Backward Citationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Challenge the Ivory Tower? New Evidence on the Basicness of Academic Patents^*

Czarnitzki

Hussinger

Schneider

2009

Kyklos

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Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:ftp://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp09029.pdf Non-technical SummaryHistorically universities used to generate knowledge that was made available to the public at no further cost, as the research was financed by the government, and thus by a country's tax paying inhabitants. The emergence of private universities and new laws on intellectual property rights changed the common practice, though. While the main activities of universities remain education and academic research that is disseminated through journal publication activity, commercial activities are on the rise in public science. For instance, the U.S. This study provides new evidence on the basicness of academic patents using professor patents for Germany linked to patent opposition data from the European Patent Office (EPO). Patent oppositions are the most important mechanism by which the validity of patents filed at the EPO can be challenged. We argue that academic patents should be less likely to be subject to validity challenges if they are more basic than corporate patents. Disputes about the validity of intellectual property rights, as patent litigations and patent oppositions, have been interpreted by the scientific literature as a legal mechanism to enhance patent quality and the effectiveness of the patent system and as an indication for competition. In this paper, we follow the latter interpretation. Previous literature has revealed that patents themselves are rather strategic tools for firms than instruments for intellectual property protection. This evidence supports the interpretation of legal disputes over patent validity as an indication for competition in product and technology markets. Basic inventions, which are not immediately directed at a marketable product, are less likely to threaten the current competitive position of companies than more applied inventions as they are less likely to threat other firms' position in product markets.In our empirical analysis, we find that academic patents are opposed less frequently than a control group of corporate patents. This suggests that academic patents cover rather basic inventions with a low immediate commercial value not threatening current returns of potential patent opposers in the corporate sector. The effect is weaker for academic patents in collaboration with the business sector, which suggests that those patents are evaluated as more applied or threatening by the business sector. Das ...

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“…In total, 91 granted and rejected patent applications in our sample are applied for by private-public research co-operations. A set of application year dummies is used to control for time trends because patent pendencies at the EPO increased sharply since the later 1980s (Harhoff and Wagner, 2009). In order to control for technology subclasses within semiconductor eight subfield dummies are used (see Table 7 in the Appendix for the definition of these dummy variables).…”

Section: Descriptive Statisticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporate Science in the Patent System: An Analysis of the Semiconductor Technology

Malva

Hussinger

2010

SSRN Journal

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Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:ftp://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp10098.pdf Non-technical SummaryCorporate scientific publications are often presented as a strategic means for firms to create prior art with the objective to prevent rivals from patenting related inventions. This defensive disclosure strategy has attracted the attention of academic scholars in the field of law, economics and management science. The academic literature has developed different answers to the question why firms engage in defensive publishing at the costs of forgoing the right to exclude third parties from using the invention by applying for a patent. One stream of the literature, mainly put forward by economic scholars, analyzes defensive publishing in the context of patent race models. In these models, the laggard in the race has incentives to publish preliminary results that are not patentable in order to prolong the patent race. Scholars in law and management science consider open disclosure as a complementary strategy to patenting. The latter perspective finds partial confirmation in interviews with patent experts in the corporate sector, while the patent race model is largely rejected by practitioners. Both streams of the literature assume that corporate publications enter the pool of prior art which is relevant to judge the novelty of patent applications at the patent office and that they have the power to block or hinder patent applications. This proposed mechanism behind corporate publications as a means to preempt patents on related technologies so far lacked empirical evidence.This paper provides a first (large-scale) analysis of the effectiveness of corporate scientific publications regarding their power to block rivals' patents. With focus on the semiconductor technology we show that scientific publications by corporations challenge the novelty and the inventive step of patent applications at the European Patent Office (EPO) significantly more than other pieces of prior art. Hence, we show that the mechanism behind the concept of defensive publishing works. Further, detailed information from the EPO patent examination procedure allows us to show that corporate publications threaten the novelty of patent applications in combination with other pieces of prior art, like patents, rather than as standalone documents. This supports the view of practitioners and scholars in law and management science who argue that corporate scientific publishing can be an...

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The Duration of Patent Examination at the European Patent Office

Cited by 241 publications

References 31 publications

The Impact of Uncertain Intellectual Property Rights on the Market for Ideas: Evidence from Patent Grant Delays

The Impact of Uncertain Intellectual Property Rights on the Market for Ideas: Evidence from Patent Grant Delays

Why Challenge the Ivory Tower? New Evidence on the Basicness of Academic Patents^*

Corporate Science in the Patent System: An Analysis of the Semiconductor Technology

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The Duration of Patent Examination at the European Patent Office

Cited by 241 publications

References 31 publications

The Impact of Uncertain Intellectual Property Rights on the Market for Ideas: Evidence from Patent Grant Delays

The Impact of Uncertain Intellectual Property Rights on the Market for Ideas: Evidence from Patent Grant Delays

Why Challenge the Ivory Tower? New Evidence on the Basicness of Academic Patents*

Corporate Science in the Patent System: An Analysis of the Semiconductor Technology

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Why Challenge the Ivory Tower? New Evidence on the Basicness of Academic Patents^*