Partisan patent examiners? Exploring the link between the political ideology of patent examiners and patent office outcomes |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Management and Organization, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, 701 Exposition Blvd., HOH 512, Los Angeles, CA 90089, United States of America;2. Department of Management and Organization, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, 701 Exposition Blvd., HOH 520, Los Angeles, CA 90089, United States of America;3. Department of Management and Organization, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, 701 Exposition Blvd., HOH 519, Los Angeles, CA 90089, United States of America;1. Justus Liebig University Gießen, Department of Financial Services, Licher Straße 74, D-35394 Gießen, Germany;2. ETH Zürich, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, Leonhardstraße 21, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland;1. Centre for Business in Society (CBiS), Coventry University, Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB, UK;2. School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, Taviton Street 16, London WC1H 0BW, UK;3. School of Applied Sciences, University of Campinas, Rua Pedro Zaccaria, 1300, Limeira, São Paulo 13484-350, Brazil;1. Essex Business School, Elmer Approach, Southend-on-Sea SS1 1LW, UK;2. SJM School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India;3. Engineering Ingegneria Informatica SpA, Milan, Italy;4. DIG-Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy |
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| Abstract: | Patents are key strategic resources which enable firms to appropriate innovation returns and prevent rival imitation. Patent examiners – individuals who may be subject to various sources of bias – play a central role in determining which inventions are awarded patent rights. Using a novel dataset, we explore if one increasingly prevalent source of bias – political ideology – manifests in examiner decision-making. Reassuringly, our analysis suggests that the political ideology of patent examiners is largely unrelated to patent office outcomes. However, we do find evidence suggesting politically active conservative-leaning examiners are more likely to grant patents relative to politically active liberal-leaning examiners, but only for patent applications where there is ambiguity regarding what constitutes patentable subject matter and hence examiners have greater discretion. |
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