 The effect of patent disclosure quality on innovationTravis A. Dyer, Stephen Glaeser, Mark H. Lang and Caroline Sprecher Journal of Accounting and Economics, 2024, vol. 77, issue 2 Abstract: The patent system grants inventors temporary monopoly rights in exchange for a public disclosure detailing their innovation. These disclosures are meant to allow others to recreate and build on the patented innovation. We examine how the quality of these disclosures affects follow-on innovation. We use the plausibly exogenous assignment to patent applications of examiners who differ in their enforcement of disclosure requirements as a source of variation in disclosure quality. We find that some examiners are significantly more lenient with respect to patent disclosure quality requirements, and that patents granted by these examiners include significantly lower-quality disclosures and generate significantly less follow-on innovation. Overall, our evidence suggests that high-quality patent disclosures create knowledge spillovers that spur follow-on innovation. Keywords: Disclosure; Patents; Innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:77:y:2024:i:2:s016541012300071x DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2023.101647 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Accounting and Economics is currently edited by J. L. Zimmerman, S. P. Kothari, T. Z. Lys and R. L. Watts More articles in Journal of Accounting and Economics from Elsevier |
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