IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/albaec/2009_021.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Search of Prior Art and Revelation of Information by Patent Applicants

Author

Listed:
  • Langinier, Corinne

    (University of Alberta, Department of Economics)

  • Marcoul, Phillipe

    (Department of Rural Economy, University of Alberta)

Abstract

We examine the strategic non-revelation of information by patent applicants. In a model of a bilateral search of information, we show that patent applicants may conceal information, and that examiners make their screening intensity contingent upon the received information. We then analyze the effects of a double review policy and a policy in which examiners ex ante commit to screening efforts. The implementation of the former policy reduces strategic non-revelation, but its overall implication remains unclear. The latter policy involves equal screening intensity across all applications, requires a limited commitment power and induces truthful revelation.

Suggested Citation

  • Langinier, Corinne & Marcoul, Phillipe, 2009. "Search of Prior Art and Revelation of Information by Patent Applicants," Working Papers 2009-21, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:albaec:2009_021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~econwps/2009/wp2009-21.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lanjouw, Jean O & Schankerman, Mark, 2001. "Characteristics of Patent Litigation: A Window on Competition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(1), pages 129-151, Spring.
    2. Juan Alcácer & Michelle Gittelman, 2006. "Patent Citations as a Measure of Knowledge Flows: The Influence of Examiner Citations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 774-779, November.
    3. Fahad Khalil, 1997. "Auditing Without Commitment," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(4), pages 629-640, Winter.
    4. Strausz, Roland, 2006. "Timing of verification procedures: Monitoring versus auditing," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 89-107, January.
    5. 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.
    6. Ryan Lampe, 2012. "Strategic Citation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 320-333, February.
    7. Suzanne Scotchmer, 1996. "Protecting Early Innovators: Should Second-Generation Products Be Patentable?," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(2), pages 322-331, Summer.
    8. Josh Lerner, 2002. "Where Does State Street Lead? A First Look at Finance Patents, 1971 to 2000," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(2), pages 901-930, April.
    9. repec:ner:ucllon:http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/17678/ is not listed on IDEAS
    10. 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.
    11. Mitusch, Kay, 2006. "Non-commitment in performance evaluation and the problem of information distortions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 60(4), pages 507-525, August.
    12. Aghion, Philippe & Tirole, Jean, 1997. "Formal and Real Authority in Organizations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 1-29, February.
    13. Vidya Atal & Talia Bar, 2014. "Patent Quality and a Two-Tiered Patent System," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 503-540, September.
    14. Claude Crampes & Corinne Langinier, 2002. "Litigation and Settlement in Patent Infringement Cases," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(2), pages 258-274, Summer.
    15. Picard, Pierre M. & van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, Bruno, 2013. "Patent office governance and patent examination quality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 14-25.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. Steven D. Levitt & Christopher M. Snyder, 1997. "Is No. News Bad News? Information Transmission and the Role of "Early Warning" in the Principal-Agent Model," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(4), pages 641-661, Winter.
    19. Howard F. Chang, 1995. "Patent Scope, Antitrust Policy, and Cumulative Innovation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 26(1), pages 34-57, Spring.
    20. Manuel Trajtenberg & Adam B. Jaffe & Michael S. Fogarty, 2000. "Knowledge Spillovers and Patent Citations: Evidence from a Survey of Inventors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 215-218, May.
    21. Lerner, Josh, 1995. "Patenting in the Shadow of Competitors," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(2), pages 463-495, October.
    22. Jonathan Coppel, 2000. "E-Commerce: Impacts and Policy Challenges," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 252, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Caillaud, Bernard & Duchêne, Anne, 2011. "Patent office in innovation policy: Nobody's perfect," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 242-252, March.
    2. Langinier, Corinne & Marcoul, Philippe, 2020. "Monetary and implicit incentives of patent examiners," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    3. Bar, Talia & Kalinowski, Jesse, 2019. "Patent validity and the timing of settlements," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    4. Corinne Langinier & Philippe Marcoul, 2019. "Subjective performance of patent examiners, implicit contracts, and self‐funded patent offices," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(3), pages 251-266, April.
    5. Gaétan De Rassenfosse & Paul H. Jensen & T'Mir Julius & Alfons Palangkaraya & Elizabeth Webster, 2023. "Is the Patent System an Even Playing Field? The Effect of Patent Attorney Firms," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(1), pages 124-142, March.
    6. David Encaoua & Thierry Madiès, 2012. "Dysfunctions of the patent system and their effects on competition," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00740716, HAL.
    7. 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.
    8. 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).
    9. Florian Schuett, 2013. "Inventors and Impostors: An Analysis of Patent Examination with Self-Selection of Firms into R&D," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 660-699, September.
    10. repec:hal:wpaper:halshs-00848247 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Corinne Langinier & Stéphanie Lluis, 2021. "Departure And Promotion Of U.S. Patent Examiners: Do Patent Characteristics Matter?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(2), pages 416-434, April.
    12. Zhao, Long, 2022. "On the grant rate of Patent Cooperation Treaty applications: Theory and evidence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    13. 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).
    14. Di Fan & Long Zhao, 2022. "Old Wine in New Bottles: Patenting Propensity," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 207-224, June.
    15. Vidya Atal & Talia Bar, 2014. "Patent Quality and a Two-Tiered Patent System," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 503-540, September.

    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. Langinier, Corinne & Marcoul, Philippe, 2007. "Patents, Search of Prior Art, and Revelation of Information," Staff General Research Papers Archive 10489, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    2. 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.
    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. Chen, Lixin, 2017. "Do patent citations indicate knowledge linkage? The evidence from text similarities between patents and their citations," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 63-79.
    5. Mark A. Lemley & Carl Shapiro, 2005. "Probabilistic Patents," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 75-98, Spring.
    6. 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.
    7. Mark Schankerman & Florian Schuett, 2022. "Patent Screening, Innovation, and Welfare," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(4), pages 2101-2148.
    8. de Rassenfosse, Gaétan & Pellegrino, Gabriele & Raiteri, Emilio, 2024. "Do patents enable disclosure? Evidence from the invention secrecy act," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    9. 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.
    10. Shapiro, Carl, 2003. "Antitrust Limits to Patent Settlements," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(2), pages 391-411, Summer.
    11. Ashtor, Jonathan H., 2022. "Modeling patent clarity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(2).
    12. Büttner, Benjamin & Firat, Murat & Raiteri, Emilio, 2022. "Patents and knowledge diffusion," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(10).
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Florian Schuett, 2013. "Inventors and Impostors: An Analysis of Patent Examination with Self-Selection of Firms into R&D," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 660-699, September.
    16. Mario Calderini & Giuseppe Scellato, 2004. "Intellectual property rights as strategic assets: the case of european patent opposition in the telecommunication industry," KITeS Working Papers 158, KITeS, Centre for Knowledge, Internationalization and Technology Studies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy, revised Jul 2004.
    17. Hur, Wonchang & Oh, Junbyoung, 2021. "A man is known by the company he keeps?: A structural relationship between backward citation and forward citation of patents," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1).
    18. 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.
    19. Nancy T. Gallini, 2002. "The Economics of Patents: Lessons from Recent U.S. Patent Reform," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 131-154, Spring.
    20. Hain, Daniel S. & Jurowetzki, Roman & Buchmann, Tobias & Wolf, Patrick, 2022. "A text-embedding-based approach to measuring patent-to-patent technological similarity," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    patents; information; incentives;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ris:albaec:2009_021. 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: Joseph Marchand (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deualca.html .

    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.