IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/teinso/v64y2021ics0160791x20312720.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The prevalence of weak patents in the United States: A new method to identify weak patents and the implications for patent policy

Author

Listed:
  • Kwon, Seokbeom

Abstract

The presence of patents with dubious validity (i.e., weak patents) has been one of the prominent patent policy issues with undesirable consequences in innovation. The present study empirically examines the prevalence of weak patents in the United States and whether or not the current patent system is capable of correcting weak patent issues. To this end, we propose a new method to identify weak patents by using patent citation information in conjunction with the textual similarity between citing and cited patents. Our method, along with a series of internal validation measures, shows that 13% of U.S. patents filed from 2001 to 2010 are weak patents. By applying this new method, we find that patent owners build a patent portfolio around a weak patent by developing subsequent inventions more than they do for a non-weak patent. Our further analysis finds that a weak patent is more or equally likely to be retained by the patent owner than a non-weak patent. Our findings suggest that patent owners have an incentive to invest in maintaining and appropriating weak patents, and thus, the current patent system is incapable of self-correcting weak patent issues.

Suggested Citation

  • Kwon, Seokbeom, 2021. "The prevalence of weak patents in the United States: A new method to identify weak patents and the implications for patent policy," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:teinso:v:64:y:2021:i:c:s0160791x20312720
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2020.101469
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160791X20312720
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.techsoc.2020.101469?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. Mark A. Lemley & Carl Shapiro, 2005. "Probabilistic Patents," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 75-98, Spring.
    3. Shapiro, Carl, 2003. "Antitrust Limits to Patent Settlements," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(2), pages 391-411, Summer.
    4. Marco Ceccagnoli, 2009. "Appropriability, preemption, and firm performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 81-98, January.
    5. NAGAOKA Sadao & YAMAUCHI Isamu, 2017. "Information Constraint of the Patent Office and Examination Quality: Evidence from the effects of initiation lags," Discussion papers 17040, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    6. Comino, Stefano & Graziano, Clara, 2015. "How many patents does it take to signal innovation quality?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 66-79.
    7. Dwivedi, Gaurav & Hallihosur, Sharanabasava & Rangan, Latha, 2010. "Evergreening: A deceptive device in patent rights," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 324-330.
    8. Smith, Pamela J., 1999. "Are weak patent rights a barrier to U.S. exports?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 151-177, June.
    9. Graham, Stuart J. H. & Hall, Bronwyn H. & Harhoff, Dietmar & Mowery, David C., 2002. "Post-Issue Patent "Quality Control": A Comparative Study of US Patent Re-Examinations and European Patent Oppositions," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt2qt097bd, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    10. Lei, Zhen & Wright, Brian D., 2017. "Why weak patents? Testing the examiner ignorance hypothesis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 43-56.
    11. Bronwyn H. Hall & Stuart Graham & Dietmar Harhoff & David C. Mowery, 2004. "Prospects for Improving US Patent Quality via Postgrant Opposition," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 4, pages 115-144, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Marco, Alan C. & Sarnoff, Joshua D. & deGrazia, Charles A.W., 2019. "Patent claims and patent scope," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    13. Iain M. Cockburn & Samuel Kortum & Scott Stern, 2002. "Are All Patent Examiners Equal? The Impact of Examiner Characteristics," NBER Working Papers 8980, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Mark A. Lemley & Bhaven Sampat, 2012. "Examiner Characteristics and Patent Office Outcomes," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(3), pages 817-827, August.
    15. Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, 2011. "The quality factor in patent systems," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(6), pages 1755-1793, December.
    16. Annamaria Conti & Jerry Thursby & Marie Thursby, 2013. "Patents as Signals for Startup Financing," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 592-622, September.
    17. 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.
    18. Bronwyn H. Hall & Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2001. "The NBER Patent Citation Data File: Lessons, Insights and Methodological Tools," NBER Working Papers 8498, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Jay Pil Choi, 2005. "Live and Let Live: A Tale of Weak Patents," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 724-733, 04/05.
    20. Alfons Palangkaraya & Elizabeth Webster & Paul H. Jensen, 2011. "Misclassification between Patent Offices: Evidence from a Matched Sample of Patent Applications," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 1063-1075, August.
    21. Joachim Henkel & Hans Zischka, 2019. "How many patents are truly valid? Extent, causes, and remedies for latent patent invalidity," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 195-239, October.
    22. Gaétan de Rassenfosse & William E. Griffiths & Adam B. Jaffe & Elizabeth Webster, 2021. "Low-Quality Patents in the Eye of the Beholder: Evidence from Multiple Examiners," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 37(3), pages 607-636.
    23. von Graevenitz, Georg & Wagner, Stefan & Harhoff, Dietmar, 2011. "How to measure patent thickets--A novel approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 6-9, April.
    24. Lanjouw, Jean O & Schankerman, Mark, 2004. "Protecting Intellectual Property Rights: Are Small Firms Handicapped?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(1), pages 45-74, April.
    25. Hemphill, Thomas A., 2005. "Technology standards development, patent ambush, and US antitrust policy," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 55-67.
    26. Gambardella, Alfonso, 2013. "The economic value of patented inventions: Thoughts and some open questions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 626-633.
    27. Wesley M. Cohen & Richard R. Nelson & John P. Walsh, 2000. "Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions and Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (or Not)," NBER Working Papers 7552, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Atal, Vidya & Bar, Talia, 2010. "Prior art: To search or not to search," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 507-521, September.
    29. 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.
    30. Hall, Bronwyn H & Ziedonis, Rosemarie Ham, 2001. "The Patent Paradox Revisited: An Empirical Study of Patenting in the U.S. Semiconductor Industry, 1979-1995," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(1), pages 101-128, Spring.
    31. Joseph Farrell & Carl Shapiro, 2008. "How Strong Are Weak Patents?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1347-1369, September.
    32. Michael Roach & Wesley M. Cohen, 2013. "Lens or Prism? Patent Citations as a Measure of Knowledge Flows from Public Research," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(2), pages 504-525, October.
    33. Joshua Lerner, 1994. "The Importance of Patent Scope: An Empirical Analysis," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(2), pages 319-333, Summer.
    34. Nagaoka, Sadao & Motohashi, Kazuyuki & Goto, Akira, 2010. "Patent Statistics as an Innovation Indicator," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1083-1127, Elsevier.
    35. Marco Corsino & Myriam Mariani & Salvatore Torrisi, 2019. "Firm strategic behavior and the measurement of knowledge flows with patent citations," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(7), pages 1040-1069, July.
    36. James Bessen & Michael J. Meurer, 2008. "Introduction to Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk," Introductory Chapters, in: Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk, Princeton University Press.
    37. Righi, Cesare & Simcoe, Timothy, 2019. "Patent examiner specialization," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 137-148.
    38. James Bessen & Michael J. Meurer, 2008. "Do Patents Perform Like Property?," Working Papers 0801, Research on Innovation.
    39. H. Kevin Steensma & Mukund Chari & Ralph Heidl, 2015. "The quest for expansive intellectual property rights and the failure to disclose known relevant prior art," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(8), pages 1186-1204, August.
    40. Rosemarie Ham Ziedonis, 2004. "Don't Fence Me In: Fragmented Markets for Technology and the Patent Acquisition Strategies of Firms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(6), pages 804-820, June.
    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. 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.
    2. Cesare Righi & Davide Cannito & Theodor Vladasel, 2023. "Continuing Patent Applications at the USPTO," Working Papers 1382, Barcelona School of Economics.
    3. 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.
    4. Benjamin Barber & Luis Diestre, 2022. "Can firms avoid tough patent examiners through examiner‐shopping? Strategic timing of citations in USPTO patent applications," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(9), pages 1854-1871, September.
    5. Cesare Righi & Davide Cannito & Theodor Vladasel, 2023. "Continuing patent applications at the USPTO," Economics Working Papers 1855, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    6. Dietmar Harhoff & Georg von Graevenitz & Stefan Wagner, 2016. "Conflict Resolution, Public Goods, and Patent Thickets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(3), pages 704-721, March.
    7. Righi, Cesare & Cannito, Davide & Vladasel, Theodor, 2023. "Continuing patent applications at the USPTO," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(4).
    8. Lei, Zhen & Wright, Brian D., 2017. "Why weak patents? Testing the examiner ignorance hypothesis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 43-56.
    9. Bekkers, Rudi & Martinelli, Arianna & Tamagni, Federico, 2020. "The impact of including standards-related documentation in patent prior art: Evidence from an EPO policy change," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(7).
    10. Rockett, Katharine, 2010. "Property Rights and Invention," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 315-380, Elsevier.
    11. deGrazia, Charles A.W. & Pairolero, Nicholas A. & Teodorescu, Mike H.M., 2021. "Examination incentives, learning, and patent office outcomes: The use of examiner’s amendments at the USPTO," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(10).
    12. Kimberlee Weatherall & Elizabeth Webster, 2014. "Patent Enforcement: A Review Of The Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 312-343, April.
    13. Dr Chiara Rosazza Bondibene, 2012. "A Study of Patent Thickets," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 401, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    14. Kenneth G Huang & Jiatao Li, 2019. "Adopting knowledge from reverse innovations? Transnational patents and signaling from an emerging economy," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(7), pages 1078-1102, September.
    15. 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.
    16. Gaétan de Rassenfosse & Adam B. Jaffe, 2018. "Are patent fees effective at weeding out low‐quality patents?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 134-148, March.
    17. Carlos J. Serrano & Rosemarie Ziedonis, 2018. "How Redeployable are Patent Assets? Evidence from Failed Startups," NBER Working Papers 24526, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Cesare Righi & Timothy Simcoe, 2020. "Patenting Inventions or Inventing Patents? Continuation Practice at the USPTO," NBER Working Papers 27686, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. 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.
    20. Yun Hou & I.P.L. Png & Xi Xiong, 2023. "When stronger patent law reduces patenting: Empirical evidence," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 977-1012, April.

    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:teinso:v:64:y:2021:i:c:s0160791x20312720. 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: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/technology-in-society .

    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.