Can the Patent Office Be Fixed?
Stanford Law and Economics Olin Working Paper No. 396
Rules for Growth 367 (2011)
17 Pages Posted: 30 Aug 2010 Last revised: 28 Apr 2020
Date Written: August 29, 2010
Abstract
How can we fix the PTO, allowing examiners to effectively distinguish between patentable and unpatentable inventions, without slowing the process to a crawl or wasting a bunch of money? This essay reviews the recent literature and considers a number of proposals and their problems. It concludes that we can make the PTO better, but are unlikely to solve the problem of bad patents.
Keywords: intellectual property, patent, PTO, patent reform
JEL Classification: O34
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
By Mark A. Lemley and Carl Shapiro
-
Empirical Evidence on the Validity of Litigated Patents
By John R. Allison and Mark A. Lemley
-
By John R. Allison, Mark A. Lemley, ...