TIME-MBE and the TECHNIS research group is pleased to invite you to a free webinar. 

Please join us for a webinar on Tuesday the 28th of November 2017 at 11:00 GMT. The speaker is Vanessa Behrens, ZEW.

Abstract: Patent applications generally take several years to be processed at the patent office, leaving inventors caught in a long phase of uncertainty about their intellectual property rights. While for some, long processing durations (pendency) can provide advantages, for others it can impede the realization of licensing agreements and prevent firm collaboration, hindering innovation and knowledge diffusion. Growing awareness of how problematic pendency is has resulted in the implementation of the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH), aimed at accelerating the patent application process through work sharing initiatives and information sharing. This study is the first to empirically assess the effectiveness of this program between the USPTO and Japanese Patent Office. Results of this paper suggest that the PPH reduces the processing time of patent applications by around 25% overall at the USPTO. This is comparable to a reduction in pendency by 211 days. The effect is most prominent during the examination phase – a reduction in pendency by 52%, or 166 days – where the work-sharing initiative of the PPH provides the greatest potential of improving office efficiency.