Discrimination against foreigners in the U.S. patent system

Gaétan de Rassenfosse () and Reza Hosseini
Additional contact information
Reza Hosseini: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Journal of International Business Policy, 2020, vol. 3, issue 4, No 3, 349-366

Abstract: Abstract Inventions of foreign origin are about ten percentage points less likely to be granted a U.S. patent than domestic inventions. An empirical analysis of 1.5 million U.S. patent applications identifies three systematic differences between foreign and domestic patent applications that partly explain this bias. They include differences in patent agents, the financial resources of the applicants, and the level of effort that applicants put into the prosecution process. We find no evidence of disparate treatment (‘intentional discrimination’) of foreigners. Instead, our evidence points to a disparate impact (‘unintentional discrimination’) of the U.S. patent system on foreign inventors. Our results suggest unequal access to the patent system for foreigners compared to locals (but also for small U.S. firms). Giving examiners the power of (truly) rejecting a patent application may be one solution to level the playing field between foreigners and locals, but also between large and small firms.

Keywords: foreign bias; discrimination; disparate impact; national treatment principle; patent system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s42214-020-00058-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
Working Paper: Discrimination against foreigners in the U.S. patent system (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:joibpo:v:3:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1057_s42214-020-00058-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/journal/42214

DOI: 10.1057/s42214-020-00058-6

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Business Policy is currently edited by Sarianna Lundan, Ari Van Assche and Anne Hoekman

More articles in Journal of International Business Policy from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().