We analyze the duration of the patent examination process at the EuropeanPatent Office (EPO). Our data contain information related to the patent’seconomic and technical relevance, EPO capacity and workload as well as novelcitation measures which are derived from the EPO’s search reports. In...

The goal of science is to advance knowledge, yet little is known about its value for marketplace inventions. While important breakthrough technologies could not have been developed without scientific background, skeptics argue that this is the exception rather than the rule, questioning the...

We investigate the causal effect of patent rights on cumulative innovation, using large-scale data that approximate the patent universe in its technological and economic variety. We introduce a novel instrumental variable for patent invalidation that exploits personnel scarcity in post-grant...

Because China has become one of the largest applicants of PCT patents, it is of interest to compare the quality of Chinese and non-Chinese applications. We extend a quality index based on internationally comparable citation data from international search reports (ISR) to consider foreign,...

We use exogenous variation in the strength of trade secrets protection to show that a relative weakening of patents (compared to trade secrets) has a disproportionately negative effect on the disclosure of processes - inventions that are not otherwise visible to society. We develop a structural...

Pharmaceutical firms typically enjoy market exclusivity for new drugs from concurrent protection of the underlying invention (through patents) and the clinical trials data submitted for market approval (through data exclusivity). Patent invalidation during drug development renders data...

A "patent box" is a term for the application of a lower corporate tax rate to the income derived from the ownership of patents. This tax subsidy instrument has been introduced in a number of countries since 2000. Using comprehensive data on patents filed at the European Patent Office, including...

We study the causal impact of invalidating marginally valid patents during post-grant opposition at the European Patent Office on affected inventors' subsequent patenting. We exploit exogenous variation in invalidation by leveraging the participation of a patent's original examiner in the...

Functioning markets for technology are an important determinant for the type, scope and distribution of innovation activities in an economy. However, markets for technology are often underdeveloped or inefficient. Existing theory attributes such imperfections to the supply side or differences in...