ヤマウチ イサム   YAMAUCHI ISAMU
  山内 勇
   所属   明治大学  情報コミュニケーション学部
   職種   専任准教授
言語種別 英語
発行・発表の年月 2015/10
形態種別 学術雑誌
査読 査読あり
標題 Does the outsourcing of prior art search increase the efficiency of patent examination? Evidence from Japan
執筆形態 共著(筆頭者)
掲載誌名 Research Policy
掲載区分国外
出版社・発行元 Elsevier
巻・号・頁 44(8),pp.1601-1614
著者・共著者 Isamu Yamauchi, Sadao Nagaoka
概要 This paper investigates the effects of outsourcing of prior art search on the efficiency of patent examination, using a large scale Japanese patent examination data. Outsourcing may increase examination quality by expanding the scope of prior art search, while it may have a negative effect if the synergy between search and examination is important. Controlling for the endogeneity of outsourcing decision as well as the changes in the time resources available for an examiner, we find that the outsourcing of prior art search significantly decreases the frequency of appeals against both examiners' rejections and grant decisions and reduces the length of examination duration. At the same time we find that the prior art search of complex inventions is not outsourced. These results suggest that the opportunity for exploiting external knowledge and capability can increase the quality as well as the speed of examination. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
DOI 10.1016/j.respol.2015.05.003
ISSN 0048-7333