This paper develops a methodology to compare the quality of examination services across patent offices. Quality is … defined as the extent to which patent offices comply with their patentability conditions in a transparent way. The methodology … patent offices in Europe (EPO), Japan (JPO) and the US (USPTO) shows that their operational designs differ substantially: the …

This paper reviews the economic literature on the role of fees in patent systems. Two main research questions are … usually addressed: the impact of patent fees on the behavior of applicants and the question of optimal fees. Studies in the … former group confirm that a range of fees affect the behavior of applicants and suggest that a patent is an inelastic good …

This paper analyzes firms’ choices regarding the geographic scope of patent protection within the European patent … system. We develop an econometric model at the patent level to quantify the impact of office fees and translation costs on … firms’ decision to validate a patent in a particular country once it has been granted by the EPO. These costs have been …

One feature of the European patent system that is heavily criticized nowadays is related to its complex fragmentation … and the induced cost burden for applicants. Once a patent is granted by the EPO, the assignee must validate (and often … validation behaviour of applicants. We rely on a gravity model that aims at explaining patent flows between inventor and target …

This paper investigates whether patent fee policies are a potential factor underlying the boom in patent applications … observed in major patent offices. We provide the first panel-based evidence suggesting that fees affect the demand for patents … in three major patent offices (EPO, USPTO and JPO), with a price elasticity of about -0.4 (similar to that of the …

This paper analyzes the role of patent filing fees requested by the member states of the European Patent Convention …

The present paper discusses the role of quality in patent systems 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 processes. Various objectives of patent offices' governors are considered. We show that the …

This paper presents a quality index for patent systems. The index is composed of nine operational design components … that help shape the transparency of patent systems and affect the extent to which they comply with patentability conditions … two factors measure patent offices’ resource allocation (i.e., workload per examiner and incentives). The index is …

This paper investigates whether patent counts can be taken as indicators of macroeconomic innovation performance. The … empirical model explicitly accounts for the two components of patenting output: research productivity and patent propensity. The … property and science and technology policies. A major policy implication relates to the design of patent systems, which …

international generation of knowledge for the case of Belgium, using indicators based on EPO and USPTO patent data (1978-2001). We … affiliates abroad. This approach allows improvement of existing indicators of internationalization of technology based on patent … Belgian patent applicants. But the share of foreign inventors to Belgian assigned patents is increasing considerably over time …