The Effect of Application Fees on Entry into Patenting

Gaétan de Rassenfosse and Adam Jaffe

No 33492, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Ensuring broad access to the patent system is crucial for fostering innovation and promoting economic growth. To support this goal, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office offers reduced fees for small and micro entities. This paper investigates whether fee rates affect the filing of applications by small and micro entities. Exploiting recent fee reforms, the study evaluates the relationship between fee changes and the number of new entrants, controlling for potential confounding factors such as legislative changes. The findings suggest that fee reductions alone are insufficient to significantly increase participation in the patent system among small and micro entities.

JEL-codes: O30 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-ind, nep-ipr, nep-sbm and nep-tid
Note: PR
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w33492.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

Related works:
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:nbr:nberwo:33492

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w33492
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by (wpc@nber.org).