Using application-level data from the Patent Office from 2001 to 2012, merged with personnel data on patent examiners …, we explore the extent to which the key decision of examiners--whether to allow a patent--is shaped by the granting styles … grant rate of her peer group, an examiner in her first two years at the Patent Office will experience a 0.15 standard …

function of patent characteristics, university policy, and inventor fields in order to examine the extent to which outside …

analysis proceeds in stages. It begins with an exogenous rate of innovation in order to focus on the first two components. The … last two components are added by endogenizing the rate of innovation. Finally, the paper considers the role of foreign …

Do stronger intellectual property rights incentivize female participation in innovation? We provide new evidence on … strategy leverages China's WTO TRIPs accession, which led to stronger intellectual property rights in 2002. We find a … innovation …

scientist and (b) applied for (an eventually granted) patent with non-patent references, where these references are used …

-specific quotas following China's entry into the World Trade Organization. Chinese import competition had two effects: first, it led … effect on innovation. We develop a simple "trapped factor" model of innovation that is consistent with these empirical …

This paper surveys the major changes in patent policy and practice that have occurred in the last two decades in the U … effects of changes in patent policy. Despite the significance of the policy changes and the wide availability of detailed data … relating to patenting, robust conclusions regarding the empirical consequences for technological innovation of changes in …

fertility of an innovation in generating more innovations cannot be observed. The menu of patent scope can be implemented with …It may be advantageous to provide a variety of kinds of patent protection to heterogenous innovations. Innovations … protection in order to be encouraged. We model the problem of designing an optimal patent menu (scope and length) when the …

Does an expansion of patent scope induce more innovative effort by firms? This article provides evidence on this … question by examining firm responses to the Japanese patent reforms of 1988. Interviews with practitioners suggest the reforms … significantly expanded the scope of patent rights in Japan, but that the average response in terms of additional R&D effort and …