The Role of Examiner Workload and Applicant Reputation in Intellectual Property Protection

Chaffin, Daniel; Heidl, Ralph; Chari, Mukund; Calantone, Roger

doi:10.5465/ambpp.2013.219

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…We measure variation in workloads that patent examiners face when a given application is filed. Previous work on researchgrant proposals (Criscuolo, Dahlander, Grohsjean & Salter 2016) and patents (Chaffin, Heidl, Chari & Calantone 2013) has shown a negative relationship between the workload that reviewers face and their approval rates. Within an art unit at the patent office, the workload in any given period is determined by the decisions of many other inventors to file applications, and thus can be treated as quasi-exogenous to the focal applicant's decision to file.…”

Section: Modeling Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

Risky Recombinations: Institutional Gatekeeping in the Innovation Process

Ferguson

Carnabuci

2017

Organization Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Theories of innovation and technical change posit that inventions that combine knowledge across technology domains have greater impact than inventions drawn from a single domain. The evidence for this claim comes mostly from research on patented inventions and ignores failed patent applications. We draw on insights from research into institutional gatekeeping to theorize that, to be granted, patent applications that span technological domains must have higher quality than otherwise-comparable, narrower applications. Using data on failed and successful patent applications, we estimate an integrated, two-stage model that accounts for this differential selection. We find that more domain-spanning patent applications are less likely to be approved, and that controlling for this differential selection reduces the estimated effect of knowledge recombination on innovative impact by about half. By conceptualizing the patentapproval process as a form of institutional gatekeeping, this paper highlights the institutional underpinnings of and constraints on the innovation process.

show abstract

Section: Modeling Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%