Does Agency Funding Affect Decisionmaking?: An Empirical Assessment of the PTO's Granting Patterns

Frakes, Michael D., Wasserman, Melissa F., Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article undertakes the first attempt to causally investigate the influence of funding on the United States Patent and Trademark Office's ("PTO") decisionmaking. More specifically, this Article studies the influence of the PTO's budgetary structure on the most important decision made by the Agency: whether or not to grant a patent. It begins by setting forth a theoretical model predicting that certain elements of the PTO's fee schedule, such as issuance and maintenance fees, which are only collected in the event that patents issue, create incentives for the PTO to grant additional patents. Using a rich database of previously unavailable patent grant rates, we then empirically test the …

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Publication information: Article title: Does Agency Funding Affect Decisionmaking?: An Empirical Assessment of the PTO's Granting Patterns. Contributors: Frakes, Michael D. - Author, Wasserman, Melissa F. - Author. Journal title: Vanderbilt Law Review. Volume: 66. Issue: 1 Publication date: January 2013. Page number: 65+. © Vanderbilt Law Review Jan 2009. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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