Working papers

Office of the Chief Economist (OCE) economists and their collaborators conduct a variety of policy relevant research and make their preliminary findings available as working papers.

Technical Documentation for the 2019 Patent Examination Research Dataset (Patex) Release

Richard Miller
August, 2020
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This new version of the Patent Examination Research Dataset (PatEx) is based on data that the Office of the Chief Economist downloaded from Patent Examination Data System (PEDS) on April 26, 2020. We parsed the XML and organized the data into the familiar PatEx data files, following the organization of the Public PAIR portal. However, there are some minor differences between the new PatEx release and the previous ones. This is the main rationale behind the new technical documentation for this release and we advise users to read the relevant sections to better acclimate themselves to the new data.

U.S. Intellectual Property and Counterfeit Goods—Landscape Review of Existing/Emerging Research

Vega Bharadwaj, Marieke Brock, Bridey Heing, Ramon Miron, and Noor Mukarram
April, 2020
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This report provides an overview of the international market for counterfeit goods. Specifically, the report details the overall magnitude of international counterfeit trade, and explains how counterfeit goods affect the U.S. economy. It highlights the role of the private sector in combatting counterfeits, and the rising trend of counterfeit trade via small parcels. Last, it reviews trends in consumer attitudes towards counterfeit goods, and assesses the facilitating role of social media.

Piracy Landscape Study: Analysis of Existing and Emerging Research Relevant to Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Enforcement of Commercial-Scale Piracy

Brett Danaher, Michael D. Smith, and Rahul Telang
April, 2020
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This report provides an overview of the actors involved in the generation and distribution of pirated content, how these actors are organized, and their financial motivations. It further reviews the peer-reviewed academic literature analyzing the harm caused by digital piracy, both to revenue in legal channels and to creative output in the entertainment sector. Finally, it reviews the peer-reviewed academic literature analyzing the effectiveness of both industry- and government-initiated anti-piracy efforts.

The Promise of Machine Learning for Patent Landscaping

Andrew A. Toole, Nicholas Pairolero, James Forman, and Alexander V. Giczy
March, 2020
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Patent landscaping involves the identification of patents in a specific technology area to understand the business, economic, and policy implications of technological change. Traditionally, patent landscapes were constructed using keyword and classification queries, a labor-intensive process that produced results limited to the scope of the query. In this paper, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using machine learning to produce patent landscapes. Machine learning leverages traditional queries to construct the data necessary to train the machine learning models, and the models allow the resultant landscapes to extend more broadly into areas of technology not expected a priori. The models, however, are “black boxes” that limit transparency into their underlying reasoning. To illustrate these points, we summarize two landscapes we recently conducted, one in mineral mining and another in artificial intelligence.

USPTO Patent Number and Case Code File Dataset Documentation

David L. Schwartz, Ted M. Sichelman, and Richard Miller
December, 2019
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Researchers studying the U.S. patent litigation system have typically had to rely on proprietary, commercial databases to retrieve comprehensive lists of litigated patents and associated case information, precluding publication of underlying data and the verification of study results. In other situations, researchers have used incomplete datasets, potentially resulting in biased results. In order to overcome these limitations, the authors and their research teams reviewed every available initial complaint and related documents in roughly 99 percent of all patent cases filed in U.S. district courts between 2003 and 2016 in order to generate a comprehensive list of litigated patents in those cases. In addition, the authors and their teams coded the case “type” for all of these actions, such as infringement, declaratory judgment, false marking, ownership dispute, malpractice, among others. The resulting dataset can be downloaded in bulk and be used and reproduced with no licensing restrictions. These data have been married to USPTO’s Patent Litigation Docket Reports Dataset, which provides full case and docket information for every one of these cases. Thus, for the first time, researchers can now use a single, comprehensive dataset of patents, case types, and related case information to conduct empirical studies of patent litigation in the U.S. district courts.

Shorter Patent Pendency Without Sacrificing Quality: The Use of Examiner's Amendments at the USPTO

Charles A.W. deGrazia, Nicholas A. Pairolero, and Mike H.M. Teodorescu
June, 2019
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Prior research argues that USPTO first-action allowance rates increase with examiner seniority and experience, suggesting lower patent quality. However, we show that the increased use of examiner's amendments account for this prior empirical finding. Further, the mechanism reduces patent pendency by up to fifty percent while having no impact on patent quality, and therefore likely benefits innovators and firms. Our analysis suggests that the policy prescriptions in the literature regarding modifying examiner time allocations should be reconsidered. In particular, rather than re-configuring time allocations for every examination promotion level, researchers and stakeholders should focus on the variation in outcomes between junior and senior examiners and on increasing training for examiner's amendment use as a solution for patent grant delay.

Using Intellectual Property Data to Measure Cross-border Knowledge Flows

Jake Dubbert, Alexander V. Giczy, Nicholas A. Pairolero, and Andrew A. Toole
March, 2019
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This paper surveys the landscape of empirical studies on cross-border trade in knowledge that use IPRs data. Based on a thorough search of the literature, we identify and categorize the types and uses of IPRs data. Our discussion critically evaluates whether these data support the empirical findings in the studies by identifying where IPRs data are particularly useful and where these data have limitations. The final section of the paper discusses the potential value of making greater use of IPRs assignment data. The goal is to provide a reference to help policymakers evaluate the trade in knowledge literature, particularly the interpretation of IPRs-based evidence for policy decisions.

The Miner Act of 2006: Innovating for Safety and Health in U.S. Mining

Andrew A. Toole, James Forman, and Asrat Tesfayesus
January, 2019
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The working paper uses patent data to explore the levels and trends in technological innovations in U.S. mineral mining with a particular focus on safety and health. We present four types of patent-based evidence on the impact of the 2006 MINER Act. While this evidence does not include a randomized or natural experiment to establish causality, all four types of evidence point to a positive and significant effect of the MINER Act on patenting in safety-related mineral mining technologies as well as reduced injuries and lost workdays among mine workers.

Previous working papers

2013-2018

An Anatomy of U.S. Firms Seeking Trademark Registration
Emin M. Dinlersoz, Nathan Goldschlag, Amanda Myers, and Nikolas Zolas
May, 2018
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Embracing Invention Similarity for the Measurement of Vertically Overlapping Claims
Charles deGrazia, Jesse Frumkin, and Nicholas Pairolero
April, 2018
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USPTO Patent Prosecution Research Data: Unlocking Office Action Traits
Qiang Lu, Amanda F. Myers, and Scott Beliveau
August, 2017
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USPTO Patent Prosecution and Examiner Performance Appraisal
Alan C. Marco, Andrew A. Toole, Richard Miller, and Jesse Frumkin
June, 2017
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Patent Examination Quality and Litigation: Is There a Link?
Alan C. Marco and Richard Miller
June, 2017
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Individual versus Institutional Ownership of University-Discovered Inventions
Dirk Czarnitzki, Thorsten Doherr, Katrin Hussinger, Paula Schliessler, and Andrew A. Toole
June, 2017
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Patent Litigation Data from US District Court Electronic Records (1963-2015)
Alan C. Marco, Asrat Tesfayesus, and Andrew A. Toole
March, 2017
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The Law and Economics of Concealing Health and Safety Information
Daniel E. Ingberman and Asrat Tesfayesus
January, 2017
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Patent Claims and Patent Scope
Alan C. Marco, Joshua D. Sarnoff, and Charles deGrazia
October, 2016
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Liberalization Agreements in the GATT/WTO and the Terms-of-trade Externality Theory: Evidence from Three Developing Countries
Asrat Tesfayesus
June, 2016
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Knowledge Creates Markets: The Influence of Entrepreneurial Support and Patent Rights on Academic Entrepreneurship
Dirk Czarnitzki, Thorsten Doherr, Katrin Hussinger, Paula Schliessler, and Andrew A. Toole
April, 2016
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The Dynamic Relationship between Investments in Brand Equity and Firm Profitability: Evidence using Trademark Registrations
Dirk Crass, Dirk Czarnitzki, and Andrew A. Toole
January, 2016
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The Bright Side of Patents
Joan Farre-Mensa, Deepak Hegde, and Alexander Ljungqvist
December, 2015
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The USPTO Patent Examination Research Dataset: A Window on the Process of Patent Examination
Stuart Graham, Alan C. Marco, and Richard Miller
November, 2015
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Business Dynamics of Innovating Firms: Linking U.S. Patents with Administrative Data on Workers and Firms
Stuart Graham, Cheryl Grim, Tariqul Islam, Alan C. Marco, and Javier Miranda
July, 2015
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The USPTO Patent Assignment Dataset: Descriptions and Analysis
Alan Marco, Stuart Graham, Amanda F. Myers, Paul D’Agostino, and Kirsten Apple
June, 2015
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The USPTO Historical Patent Data Files: Two Centuries of Innovation
Alan Marco, Michael Carley, Steven Jackson, and Amanda F. Myers
June, 2015
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The USPTO Trademark Assignment Dataset: Descriptions and Insights
Stuart Graham, Alan Marco, Amanda F. Myers, and Kirsten Apple
April, 2014
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Perspectives on the growth in Chinese patent applications to the USPTO
Alan Marco, Richard Miller and Jay Kesan
February, 2014
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What is the Probability of Receiving a US Patent?
Michael Carley, Deepak Hegde and Alan Marco
December, 2013
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What is behind the growth in trademark filings? An analysis of United States data
Amanda F. Myers
October, 2013
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