We investigate how a deferred patent examination system promotes ex-ante screening of patent applications, which reduces both the number of granted patents and the use of economic resources for examinations, without reducing the return from R&D. Based on a real option theory, we develop a model...

The number of requests for patent examination showed a significant increase of 83% from 1997 to 2007 in Japan, while the number of patent applications increased by only 1%. This paper aims at theoretically and empirically analyzing the causes of recent "explosion" of examination requests,...