The paper investigates whether patent fees are an effective mechanism to deter the filing of low-quality patent applications. The study analyses the effect of the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1982, which resulted in a substantial increase in patenting fees at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office,...

This paper presents estimates of the R&D depreciation rate using survey data on Australian inventions. Its novelty is twofold. First, it relies on direct observation of the revenue streams of inventions. This is in sharp contrast with previous studies, which all rely on models based on indirect...

A low-quality patent system threatens to slow the pace of technological progress. Concerns about low patent quality are supported by estimates from litigation studies suggesting that the majority of patents granted by the U.S. patent office should not have been issued. This paper proposes a new...

Environmental policy discussions increasingly focus on issues related to technological change. This is partly because the environmental consequences of social activity are frequently affected by the rate and direction of technological change, and partly because environmental policy interventions...

This symposium article discusses issues raised for patent processes and policy created by inventions generated by artificial intelligence (AI). Using insights from economic research on intellectual property rights, it argues in favor of allowing patent protection for AI-generated inventions....