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Are Patent Offices Substitutes?

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  • Elise Petit
  • Bruno Van Pottelsberghe
  • Lluís Gimeno Fabra

Abstract

This paper evaluates whether and to what extent patent offices can substitute for each other. Based on an original dataset comprising 7.200 PCT patents filed simultaneously in Japan, the USA and Europe, the empirical analysis confirms that the degree of substitution is significant. Patent offices search up to 37% less technology classes, generate up to 33% less citations, and send up to 43% less communications when a PCT application was previously processed by another office. They also rely more on international citations and provide more information in the early stage of the examination process. Further substitution may still be leveraged, as around 55% of technology classes searched and up to 70% of backward citations are duplicates -voluntarily or not - of prior examination work.

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  • Elise Petit & Bruno Van Pottelsberghe & Lluís Gimeno Fabra, 2021. "Are Patent Offices Substitutes?," Working Papers ECARES 2021-18, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    • Handle: RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/330841
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    1. Lluís Gimeno-Fabra & Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, 2021. "Decoding patent examination services," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(7), pages 707-730, October.
    2. de Saint-Georges, Matthis & van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, Bruno, 2013. "A quality index for patent systems," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 704-719.
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    6. Tetsuo Wada, 2020. "When do the USPTO examiners cite as the EPO examiners? An analysis of examination spillovers through rejection citations at the international family-to-family level," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1591-1615, November.
    7. Elise Petit & Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie & Lluis Gimeno-Fabra, 2022. "Global patent systems: Revisiting the national bias hypothesis," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 56-67, March.
    8. Bruno Van Pottelsberghe, 2020. "Learning from 20 Years of Research on Innovation Economics," Working Papers TIMES² 2020-038, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    9. Kim, Yee Kyoung & Oh, Jun Byoung, 2017. "Examination workloads, grant decision bias and examination quality of patent office," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(5), pages 1005-1019.
    10. Tetsuo Wada, 2016. "Obstacles to prior art searching by the trilateral patent offices: empirical evidence from International Search Reports," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(2), pages 701-722, May.
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    1. Elise Petit & Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie & Lluis Gimeno-Fabra, 2022. "Global patent systems: Revisiting the national bias hypothesis," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 56-67, March.
    2. Zhao, Long, 2022. "On the grant rate of Patent Cooperation Treaty applications: Theory and evidence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    3. Higham, Kyle & Contisciani, Martina & De Bacco, Caterina, 2022. "Multilayer patent citation networks: A comprehensive analytical framework for studying explicit technological relationships," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).

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    Keywords

    Patent systems; TRIPs; national bias; examination; international comparison;
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