Partisan Patent Examiners? Exploring the Link Between the Political Ideology of Patent Examiners and Patent Office Outcomes

33 Pages Posted: 29 Jun 2020 Last revised: 28 Feb 2023

See all articles by Joseph Raffiee

Joseph Raffiee

University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business

Florenta Teodoridis

University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business

Daniel C. Fehder

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); USC, Marshall School

Date Written: February 27, 2023

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.

Keywords: Innovation, Patents, Political Ideology, Patent Examiners, Intellectual Property Rights

JEL Classification: O30, O31, O34, O51

Suggested Citation

Raffiee, Joseph and Teodoridis, Florenta and Fehder, Daniel C. and Fehder, Daniel C., Partisan Patent Examiners? Exploring the Link Between the Political Ideology of Patent Examiners and Patent Office Outcomes (February 27, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3619474 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3619474

Joseph Raffiee

University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business ( email )

701 Exposition Blvd, HOH 431
Los Angeles, CA California 90089-1424
United States

Florenta Teodoridis (Contact Author)

University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business ( email )

701 Exposition Blvd
Los Angeles, CA California 90089
United States

Daniel C. Fehder

USC, Marshall School ( email )

Los Angeles, CA
United States

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ( email )

77 Massachusetts Avenue
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
United States

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