The TRIPS Agreement, administered by the World Trade Organisation, ensures the smooth functioning of the international patent system. It promises among others that local and foreign firms are treated in the same, non-discriminatory manner. We test for whether national treatment has been upheld...

A low-quality patent system threatens to slow the pace of technological progress. Concerns about low patent quality are supported by estimates from litigation studies suggesting that the majority of patents granted by the U.S. patent office should not have been issued. This paper proposes a new...

Low-quality patents are of considerable concern to businesses operating in patent-dense markets. There are two pathways by which low-quality patents may be issued: the patent office may apply systematically a standard that is too lenient (low inventive step threshold); or the patent office may...

Patents may assist trade in technology either by protecting buyers against the expropriation of the idea by third parties (the appropriation effect) or by enabling sellers to more frankly disclose the idea during the negotiation phase (the disclosure effect). We test for the presence of both...

Evidence suggests that patents facilitate technology transactions but the reasons for the effect are unclear. Patents may assist trade in technology by either: (i) protecting buyers against the expropriation of the idea (the ‘appropriation effect’); or (ii) increasing information sharing...

A low-quality patent system threatens to slow the pace of technological progress. Concerns about low patent quality are supported by estimates from litigation studies suggesting that the majority of patents granted by the U.S. patent office should not have been issued. This paper proposes a new...