The Effect of Compliance Time in Patent Examination – An Experimental Study

Using controlled and incentivized individual decision-making experiments, we test whether the length of compliance periods in patent examinations affects application behavior and overall efficiency, measured by wasteful investment in hopeless applications on the one hand, and insufficient investments in promising ones on the other hand. More specifically, our participants – students and IP practitioners – decide in the role of a patentee with an invention which, unbeknown to them, is either patentable or not. They can invest real effort in order to reach a threshold while receiving incomplete yet informative feedback concerning the binary prospects of their application. We vary the time a patentee has to finish his or her work on the application – either one, three or six weeks. We find evidence that a longer compliance period leads to more efficient decisions.