IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/respol/v42y2013i4p844-854.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do applicant patent citations matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Cotropia, Christopher A.
  • Lemley, Mark A.
  • Sampat, Bhaven

Abstract

Patent law both imposes a duty on patent applicants to submit relevant prior art to the PTO and assumes that examiners use this information to determine an application's patentability. In this paper, we examine the validity of these assumptions by studying the use made of applicant-submitted prior art by delving into the actual prosecution process in over a thousand different cases. We find that patent examiners rarely use applicant-submitted art in their rejections to narrow patents, relying almost exclusively on prior art they find themselves. Our findings have implications for a number of important legal and policy disputes, including initiatives to improve patent quality and the strong presumption of validity the law grants issued patents—a presumption that makes patents more difficult to challenge in court.

Suggested Citation

  • Cotropia, Christopher A. & Lemley, Mark A. & Sampat, Bhaven, 2013. "Do applicant patent citations matter?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 844-854.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:42:y:2013:i:4:p:844-854
    DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2013.01.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733313000085
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.respol.2013.01.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hegde, Deepak & Sampat, Bhaven, 2009. "Examiner citations, applicant citations, and the private value of patents," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 287-289, December.
    2. Adam B. Jaffe & Michael S. Fogarty & Bruce A. Banks, 1998. "Evidence from Patents and Patent Citations on the Impact of NASA and Other Federal Labs on Commercial Innovation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(2), pages 183-205, June.
    3. Popp David & Juhl Ted & Johnson Daniel K.N., 2004. "Time In Purgatory: Examining the Grant Lag for U.S. Patent Applications," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-45, November.
    4. Manuel Trajtenberg, 1990. "A Penny for Your Quotes: Patent Citations and the Value of Innovations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 172-187, Spring.
    5. Bhaven N. Sampat, 2010. "When Do Applicants Search for Prior Art?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 399-416, May.
    6. Bronwyn H. Hall & Adam Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2005. "Market Value and Patent Citations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(1), pages 16-38, Spring.
    7. Ryan Lampe, 2012. "Strategic Citation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 320-333, February.
    8. Hemphill, C. Scott & Sampat, Bhaven N., 2012. "Evergreening, patent challenges, and effective market life in pharmaceuticals," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 327-339.
    9. Alcácer, Juan & Gittelman, Michelle & Sampat, Bhaven, 2009. "Applicant and examiner citations in U.S. patents: An overview and analysis," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 415-427, March.
    10. Peter Thompson, 2006. "Patent Citations and the Geography of Knowledge Spillovers: Evidence from Inventor- and Examiner-added Citations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(2), pages 383-388, May.
    11. Harhoff, Dietmar & Reitzig, Markus, 2004. "Determinants of opposition against EPO patent grants--the case of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 443-480, April.
    12. Lemley, Mark A & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Patent Hold-Up and Royalty Stacking," Competition Policy Center, Working Paper Series qt8638s257, Competition Policy Center, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Adam B. Jaffe & Gaétan de Rassenfosse, 2017. "Patent citation data in social science research: Overview and best practices," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 68(6), pages 1360-1374, June.
    2. Sun, Zhen & Wright, Brian D., 2022. "Citations backward and forward: Insights into the patent examiner's role," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(7).
    3. Kathryn Rudie Harrigan & Maria Chiara Guardo & Elona Marku, 2018. "Patent value and the Tobin’s q ratio in media services," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 1-19, February.
    4. Petra Moser & Joerg Ohmstedt & Paul W. Rhode, 2018. "Patent Citations—An Analysis of Quality Differences and Citing Practices in Hybrid Corn," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(4), pages 1926-1940, April.
    5. Inchae Park & Yujin Jeong & Byungun Yoon, 2017. "Analyzing the value of technology based on the differences of patent citations between applicants and examiners," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(2), pages 665-691, May.
    6. Po‐Hsuan Hsu & Hai‐Ping Hui & Hsiao‐Hui Lee & Kevin Tseng, 2022. "Supply chain technology spillover, customer concentration, and product invention," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 393-417, April.
    7. Hohberger, Jan, 2016. "Does it pay to stand on the shoulders of giants? An analysis of the inventions of star inventors in the biotechnology sector," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 682-698.
    8. Manuel Acosta & Daniel Coronado & Esther Ferrándiz & Manuel Jiménez, 2022. "Effects of knowledge spillovers between competitors on patent quality: what patent citations reveal about a global duopoly," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 1451-1487, October.
    9. Andrew Eckert & Corinne Langinier, 2014. "A Survey Of The Economics Of Patent Systems And Procedures," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 996-1015, December.
    10. Antonio Messeni Petruzzelli & Daniele Rotolo & Vito Albino, 2014. "Determinants of Patent Citations in Biotechnology: An Analysis of Patent Influence Across the Industrial and Organizational Boundaries," SPRU Working Paper Series 2014-05, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    11. Gaessler, Fabian & Harhoff, Dietmar & Sorg, Stefan, 2019. "Bargaining Failure and Freedom to Operate: Re-evaluating the Effect of Patents on Cumulative Innovation," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 220, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    12. Ahmad Barirani & Bruno Agard & Catherine Beaudry, 2013. "Discovering and assessing fields of expertise in nanomedicine: a patent co-citation network perspective," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(3), pages 1111-1136, March.
    13. Dechezlepretre, Antoine & Martin, Ralf & Mohnen, Myra, 2014. "Knowledge spillovers from clean and dirty technologies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 60501, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Kathryn Rudie Harrigan & Maria Chiara DiGuardo, 2017. "Sustainability of patent-based competitive advantage in the U.S. communications services industry," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 42(6), pages 1334-1361, December.
    15. Ashtor, Jonathan H., 2022. "Modeling patent clarity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(2).
    16. Paola Giuri & Myriam Mariani & Stefano Brusoni & Gustavo Crespi & Dominique Francoz & Alfonso Gambardella & Walter Garcia-Fontes & Aldo Geuna & Raul Gonzales & Dietmar Harhoff & Karin Hoisl & Christia, 2005. "Everything you Always Wanted to Know about Inventors (but Never Asked): Evidence from the PatVal-EU Survey," LEM Papers Series 2005/20, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    17. Antoine Dechezleprêtre & Yann Ménière & Myra Mohnen, 2017. "International patent families: from application strategies to statistical indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(2), pages 793-828, May.
    18. Keijl, S. & Gilsing, V.A. & Knoben, J. & Duysters, G., 2016. "The two faces of inventions: The relationship between recombination and impact in pharmaceutical biotechnology," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(5), pages 1061-1074.
    19. Fernández, Ana María & Ferrándiz, Esther & Medina, Jennifer, 2022. "The diffusion of energy technologies. Evidence from renewable, fossil, and nuclear energy patents," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    20. Satoshi Yasukawa & Shingo Kano, 2014. "Validating the usefulness of examiners’ forward citations from the viewpoint of applicants’ self-selection during the patent application procedure," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 99(3), pages 895-909, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:42:y:2013:i:4:p:844-854. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/respol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.