Patent validation at the country level—The role of fees and translation costs

One feature of the European patent system that is heavily criticized nowadays is related to its fragmentation and the induced cost burden for applicants. Once a patent is granted by the EPO, the assignee must validate (and often translate) it and pay the renewal fees to keep it in force in each country in which protection is sought. The objective of this paper is to assess to what extent validation and renewal fees as well as translation costs affect the validation behavior of applicants. We rely on a gravity model that aims at explaining patent flows between inventor and target countries within the European patent system. The results show that the size of countries, their wealth and the distance between their capital cities are significant determinants of patent flows. Validation fees and renewal fees further affect the validation behavior of applicants. Translation costs seem to have an impact as well. The implementation of cost-reducing policy interventions like the London Protocol will, therefore, induce a significant increase in the number of patents validated in each European country.     

International patent disputes: Evidence from oppositions at the European Patent Office

The impact of the geographical origin of patents on the probability of an opposition being filed and a patent being revoked has been examined in this paper, after accounting for patent value indicators and industry specificities. The study is based on a dataset of approximately 450,000 EPO granted patents and 24,000 patent opposition cases in the years 2000–2008. We find that patents with a first priority in the US are less likely to be challenged, although they are relatively more likely to be revoked than patents with a priority in a member country of the European Patent Convention. Patents from Japan have less probability of being opposed and are less likely to be revoked than the other countries. A disaggregation of the European countries has revealed that patents with a German priority have a higher or similar likelihood of being opposed than patents from the other countries, with the exceptions of The Netherlands and Denmark.     

Measuring patent assessment quality—Analyzing the degree and kind of (in)consistency in patent offices’ decision making

We argue that consistent decision making in judging a patent's validity and basing this on its underlying technological quality are important elements of patent office service (“assessment”) quality. To understand which level of assessment quality patent offices (can) provide, particularly in new technological areas, we study the concordance of the European Patent Office's (EPO) granting and opposition decisions for individual patents. Using the biotechnology industry in the 1980s (an emerging patenting area then) as an example, we find no empirical evidence that the EPO provided maximal or optimal assessment quality as far as can be told from bibliographic indicators. We discuss research limitations and consequences of this first empirical analysis, and suggest ideas for refinements in future work.     

Separating patent wheat from chaff: Would the US benefit from adopting patent post-grant review?

This article assesses the impact in the US of adopting a patent post-grant review (PGR) procedure similar to one provided in the America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011. We employ novel methods for matching US patents to their European counterparts to find that opposition rates are about three times higher among European Patent Office (EPO) equivalents of US litigated patents as against control-group (unlitigated) patents. Contingent on reaching a final judgment in EPO post-grant opposition, we find that about 70% of these equivalents have challenged claims that are either completely revoked or amended. Using our empirical findings to inform a series of welfare estimates, we calculate benefit-to-cost ratios that the US may expect from implementing PGR in the range of 4:1–10:1. We also discover that these large social benefits result primarily from eliminating unwarranted market power in the current stock of granted patents, and much less so from litigation cost savings per se. Our results provide evidence that the US may benefit substantially from adopting the AIA post-grant review, but only provided that costs are controlled and that administration and appeals are not allowed to become too costly.     

中国与瑞典专利技术合作研究

国际科技合作是促进国内技术创新的重要路径,而国际专利合作申请是国 际科技合作的重要体现。本文选择瑞典的优势产业技术领域,基于 1988年至2017 年瑞典、中国申请及合作申请的 PCT 专利和 EPO 专利,对专利申请及合作趋势 进行分析。剖析了我国企业与瑞典在专利技术创新方面的差距及在专利合作中存 在的问题,以期为我国企业更好地开展对瑞典科技与经济合作提供参考。尤其是 在中美经贸关系紧张背景下,探讨与关键性小国的合作对我国深化对外科技合作 战略、推动企业技术创新具有重要意义。     

欧洲专利局专利法律状态数据深加工关键问题研究

不同数据库法律事件代码的多来源和不一致性给专利法律事件的分类和数据深加工带来较大阻碍，目前尚未形成层次化、系统化的分类体系架构。对此，以欧洲专利局（EPO）提供的全球专利法律状态XML数据为研究对象，详细介绍数据覆盖范围以及不同类型交换数据的数据格式；基于对PatSnap、INNOGRAPHY、incoPat、SooPAT、万象云和佰腾网等国内外知名专利检索分析平台中的专利法律状态对比，把EPO专利法律状态归纳为在审、授权、有效、失效、技术转移和其他六大类，并根据各类别在专利生命周期中出现的位置，对专利当前法律状态的有效性划分为在审、有效和失效3种状态，同时将4 000多个EPO法律事件代码中的转让代码和专利许可代码进行详细分类标引，针对专利法律状态分类体系构建、专利当前有效性判定、专利技术转移分类等关键问题，对EPO专利数据进行结构化解析和深加工，从而构建EPO专利法律状态数据库物理模型，为提高专利检索和分析工作的质量及效率提供支撑。     

Domestic patents and developing countries: arguments for their study and data from Brazil (1980–1995)

This paper presents data from Brazilian Patent Office (Instituto Nacional de Propriedade Industrial, INPI) and compares them with data from the United States Patent Office (USPTO). Developing countries have technological activities that are important locally but not significant at international level (imitation, local learning, adaptation of foreign innovations). These activities might be patentable only at national level. Therefore, the study of domestic patents of developing countries provides a broader picture than USPTO patents. This paper compares 8309 INPI patents with 475 USPTO patents (between 1980 and 1995). Domestic patent data show peculiarities in the Brazilian case, possibly shared with other countries in similar technological level: (a) high share of individual patents; (b) foreign-owned firms with important activities; (c) low firm involvement in R&D activities. Some characteristics are shared with developed countries: (a) domestic firms as the major patentees; (b) according to firm size, there is a U-shaped distribution of patents; (c) evidences of multi-technology large firms; (d) a relatively small share of firms have more than one patent in the whole period. The contrast between USPTO and national patenting statistics shows different rankings according to ownership structure, leading firms, industrial sectors, and international patent classification. These differences highlight sources of international competitiveness and point to weaknesses in Brazilian innovative activities. This paper concludes evaluating the contributions (and weaknesses) of this database for the evaluation of the Brazilian National System of Innovation.     

Foreign inventors in Europe and the United States: Diversity and Patent Quality

We explore the impact of migrant inventors on patent quality in Europe and the United States between 1990 and 2010. Drawing on a large sample of patent applications filed at the European Patent Office with a corresponding Patent Cooperation Treaty extension, we select inventor teams whose members reside in the countries of interest, but whose nationality may vary. In keeping with the literature, we find that migrant inventors are associated with higher quality patents via increased diversity at the team level, in addition to increased diversity at both the company and local level. This positive relationship with diversity persists after conditioning for the presence of migrants in the team, which is suggestive of cultural, and not merely functional, diversity.     

Pendency and grant ratios of invention patents: A comparative study of the US and China

This paper compares and contrasts the invention patents of the US and China focusing on the application and granting practices. The findings show that both countries appear to make efforts to provide equal treatment to domestic and foreign applicants for patents in terms of pendency, but domestic applicants seem to enjoy more certainty of the patent being granted within the pendency period than foreign applicants in both countries. As regards grants, the US is equal in granting patents to domestic and foreign applications; China appears to give preferential treatment to domestic applications. Such practices have implications for both patenting policy and activities.     

Claiming more: the Increased Voluminosity of Patent Applications and its Determinants

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 applications. Four hypotheses are quantitatively examined: the diffusion of national drafting practices, the complexity of research activities, the emergence of new sectors, and filing strategies. The results validate the four hypotheses. They reveal major differences across countries in patent drafting styles, especially between Civil and Common Law countries, the latter being characterized by much larger patents. Second, the success of the PCT route is leading to the harmonizing of drafting styles worldwide on the US model. This paper therefore challenges the commonly accepted idea that more claims reflect a broader scope of protection by showing that the size of patents is partly due to institutional changes in the system.     

我国创新药企被提专利无效请求风险预警研究

我国正由仿制药大国向创新药大国加速转型,越来越多的企业由仿制药企业向创新药企业转变。新角色下被提专利权无效宣告请求的风险日益升高,对企业专利管理实践提出新挑战。首次将我国原国家食品药品监督管理总局药品审评中心发布的《中国上市药品目录集》中创新药企业信息,与国家知识产权局专利局复审和无效审理部公布的专利权无效宣告请求案件信息链接。基于法律纠纷理论模型框架,实证分析药品发明专利无效请求发生概率的影响因素。研究表明：专利价值越高、专利法律质量越低、信息不对称程度（或当事人对无效结果的期望分歧）越大,被提无效请求的风险越高。与理论分析不一致的是,与制剂/组合物专利相比,药用化合物和药用生物分子专利被提无效请求的概率更低。研究结论为企业有效开展药品发明专利被提无效请求的风险预警提供有益借鉴。     

Applicant and examiner citations in U.S. patents: An overview and analysis

Prior art patent citations have become a popular measure of patent quality and knowledge flow between firms. Interpreting these measurements is complicated, in some cases, because prior art citations are added by patent examiners as well as by patent applicants. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) adopted new reporting procedures in 2001, making it possible to measure examiner and applicant citations separately for the first time. We analyzed prior art citations listed in all U.S. patents granted in 2001-2003, and found that examiners played a significant role in identifying prior art, adding 63% of citations on the average patent, and all citations on 40% of patents granted. An analysis of variance found that firm-specific variables explain most of the variation in examiner-citation shares. Using multivariate regression, we found that foreign applicants to the USPTO had the highest proportion of citations added by examiners. High-volume patent applicants had a greater proportion of examiner citations, and a substantial number of firms won patents without listing a single applicant citation. In terms of technology, we found higher examiner shares among patents in electronics, communications, and computer-related fields. Taken together, our findings suggest that firm-level patenting practices, particularly among high-volume applicants, have a strong influence on citation data and merit additional research.     

Analyzing the evidence of an IPR take-off in China and India

Both China and India have been experiencing a historical take-off in the use of intellectual property rights (IPR). In terms of trademark applications filed with domestic IP offices in 2009, the evidence demonstrates that China now ranks 1st worldwide and India 5th, while for patent filings China ranks 3rd worldwide and India ranks 9th. This performance is remarkable as both China and India experienced negligible demand for IPR protection as recently as two decades ago. The IPR take up trends in these two countries are analyzed in detail, highlighting the structure of patent and trademark demand since 1990. Specifically, the available series are broken down and analyzed according to: (i) national versus foreign origin of patents and trademarks; (ii) technological (IPC) and trademark (NICE) classes; and (iii) the major individual patent users in each country. The data used refers to applications in the Chinese and Indian IP offices although the demand from residents of these two countries in both the international and other national systems is also assessed. Beyond the existing momentum in IPR registrations by China and India and their capacity to maintain it into the near future, the paper addresses practical questions about the strategies, motives and benefits behind the current trends. In particular, we seek to evaluate the capacity of both China's and India's National Innovation Systems to internalize the potential returns of this increasing demand for IPR. The insight reached finds that should both China and India sustain their current IPR growth rates, they will be able to catch up with the most advanced economies within the time span of a few decades.     

专利收费制度对专利行为的影响程度研究

专利收费制度是专利制度正常运行的核心机制之一，该制度通过调整专利行为影响专利制度的运行绩效，研究专利收费制度对专利行为的影响，对中国创新驱动发展战略和知识产权强国建设具有重要意义。通过文献研究发现：专利收费制度对专利申请行为、专利维持行为以及其他专利行为产生负向影响，而且不同国家或者同一国家不同时期的这种影响水平存在一定差异；二是专利收费制度对专利行为的影响值得重视，但同时要注意其影响限度。     

Construction of a Japanese Patent Database and a first look at Japanese patenting activities

A new comprehensive patent database based on patent applications filed with the Japanese Patent Office is described. We present the methodology for the construction of this database, the IIP Patent Database, its basic features and we discuss the recent history of patenting in Japan. We also compare citing-cited patterns of Japanese patents in this database with the citing-cited patterns for the same patents registered in the US, using OECD patent family information to identify US counterparts. We found similar patterns in the two countries, although citation is provided by patent examiners in Japan, while in the US a large share of citations is made by inventors.     

A policy insight into the R&D-patent relationship

Contrary to an accepted wisdom, this paper shows that cross-country variations in the number of patents per researcher do not only reflect differences in the propensity to patent but also signals differences in research productivity. We put forward and test an empirical model that formally accounts for the productivity and the propensity component of the R&D-patent relationship. The two components play an important role, as witnessed by the impact of several policies, including education, intellectual property and science and technology policies. Indicators based on domestic priority filings reflect research efforts and are primarily affected by varying propensities to patent. In contrast, international filings, especially triadic patents, rather capture variations in research productivity.     

海洋波浪能领域国际专利竞争态势分析

为了解海洋波浪能国际专利布局现状,本文在检索查阅、归纳分析原始专利文献的基础上,对海洋波浪能国际专利申请(公开)趋势、国家分布、主要专利权人及重点技术领域等方面做了全面的剖析,从中可了解技术领先国家,重点公司及其技术,以期对我国海洋波浪能的研发机构、企业有所启发,以对我国海洋波浪能的发展有所帮助。     

宁波市发明专利的计量分析

以中国专利数据库(知网版)收录的发明专利为数据源,对1986-2011年宁波市9 387件发明专利进行了计量分析,结果显示专利数量增长符合普赖斯指数规律、专利发明人分布符合洛特卡定律、专利权申请人分布符合布拉德福定律的集中与分散规律,并且可用正幂函数进行曲线拟合。     

Spatial differences in the quality of university patenting: Do regions matter?

This paper uses patent citation data to analyze the quality of university technology across European regions. The empirical analysis draws on a panel dataset of 4580 European university-owned patents classified by 202 European regions over the period 1998-2004. The methodology involves a multilevel framework to identify the effects of factors at three hierarchical levels (individual, university, and regional) on the quality of university patenting. The results suggest that regional factors, such as the level of development, industrial potential, and regional higher education R&D expenditure, do not play any significant role in determining the quality of European university patents. We instead find that the factors affecting patent quality stem from their specific characteristics. We also find that university size does not explain the quality of patents. However, there is significant unobserved heterogeneity at the university level in all models, suggesting that differences in other university characteristics explain a substantial part of the variance in patent quality.