The Cost Factor in Patent Systems

patents, cost elasticity, cost per claim per capita, patent systems, patent fees, P14, P51, O34,

Languages, Fees and the International Scope of Patenting

This paper analyzes firms’ choices regarding the geographic scope of patent protection within the European patent system. We develop an econometric model at the patent level to quantify the impact of office fees and translation costs on firms’ decision to validate a patent in a particular country once it has been granted by the EPO. These costs have been disregarded in previous studies. The results suggest that both translation costs and fees for validation and renewals have a strong influence on the behavior of applicants

A brief history of space and time: the scope-year index as a patent value indicator based on families and renewals

The renewal of patents and their geographical scope for protection constitute two essential dimensions in a patent’s life, and probably the most frequently used patent value indicators. The intertwining of these dimensions (the geographical scope of protection may vary over time) makes their analysis complex, as any measure along one dimension requires an arbitrary choice on the second. This paper proposes a new indicator of patent value, the Scope-Year index, combining the two dimensions. The index is computed for patents filed at the EPO from 1980 to 1996 and validated in its member states. It shows that the average value of patent filings has increased in the early eighties but has constantly decreased from the mid-eighties until the mid nineties, despite the institutional expansion of the EPO. This result sheds a new and worrying light on the worldwide boom in patent filings.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

The role of utility models in patent filing strategies: evidence from European countries

We examine the role of utility models (UM) in patent filing strategies. With an extensive patent family data from European countries, we explore the structures and characteristics of patent families, which include UMs. A simple typology of patent families with UM members is introduced. We document that the geographical scope of most patent families with UM members is purely national, which is in line with the conventional view that the UM mechanism covers technologically and economically marginal inventions. However, the image of a UM as a signal of a minor invention is an oversimplification. Applicants exhibit a mixture of uses for the UM and there exists a subset of UM filings linked to inventions the inventive step of which meets or exceeds the threshold required for patent protection. Some UMs are members of international patent families, indicating that applicants may have some strategic motives to use UMs in international filing. The findings highlight that both types of IPR documents (UMs and patents) should be taken into account when working with data on patent families, analyzing patent filing strategies, and constructing patent-based indicators such as patenting propensities.peerReviewe