The joint increase in the number and size of patents filed around the world puts patent systems under pressure. This paper addresses issues in measuring the voluminosity of patent applications and highlights patterns in its evolution. The results, based on a database of 2 million EPO...

Patent filings worldwide have been subject to a combined growth in terms of the number of applications filed and their size. This is putting patent systems under tremendous pressure, as witnessed by the evolution of backlogs at several patent offices. The present article presents an analysis of...

The size of patent applications has doubled over the past two decades, resulting in a dramatic surge in the workload of patent offices all over the world and serious concerns over patent quality standards. The current paper investigates the sources of this inflation in claims and pages for EPO...

This paper presents a critical survey of the literature on the determinants of patent value. The contributions to the literature are essentially two-fold. First, significant inconsistencies across existing studies are underlined. Second, a sensitivity analysis shows strong dependencies of...

This paper aims at contributing to the literature on the determinants of patent value. First, it puts forward a new potential class of value determinants in the form of filing strategies (encompassing filing routes and drafting styles). Second, it provides empirical evidence suggesting that...

The sharp increase in academic patenting over the past 20 years raises important issues regarding the generation and diffusion of academic knowledge. Three key questions may be raised in this respect: What is behind the surge in academic patenting? Does patenting affect the quality and quantity...