Examination incentives, learning, and patent office outcomes: The use of examiner’s amendments at the USPTO
研究了美国专利商标局审查员的经验和资历激励如何影响创新生态系统，发现审查员通过增加审查员修正的使用来响应生产激励并展现学习效应，这能缩短处理时间且不影响专利质量。
We investigate how U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) patent examiner experience and seniority-based incentives affect the innovation ecosystem. First, we show that examiners respond to production incentives and demonstrate learning by increasing the use of examiner’s amendments in both experience and seniority, a mechanism not previously studied. Second, this examination procedure directly benefits innovators and firms by significantly reducing prosecution processing time without impacting patent quality. Finally, after considering examiner’s amendments, the negative relationship between examiner characteristics and patent examination quality found in the previous literature does not persist at first action, a decision point that allows for the clear measurement of examiner behavior. Our results demonstrate a need for reformulated policy recommendations related to the structure of examination at the USPTO.