The impact of including standards-related documentation in patent prior art: Evidence from an EPO policy change

Rudi Bekkers, Arianna Martinelli and Federico Tamagni

Research Policy, 2020, vol. 49, issue 7

Abstract: It is crucial that patent offices grant protection only to those inventions that are novel and non-obvious. In 2004, the European Patent Office (EPO) made the unique move to systematically extend its prior art database by including documents shared among members of standard-setting organisations, but not made available to the general audience. This paper investigates the effects of this policy change. We find that it worked thanks to a significant reduction in granting rates rather than reducing the scope of granted patents. Our study demonstrates how a targeted approach can improve the quality of the patent granting process.

Keywords: Quality of patent process; Technological standards; Policy evaluation; Diff-in-diff-in-diff estimation; Patent scope (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 L15 O30 O32 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:49:y:2020:i:7:s004873332030086x

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2020.104007

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