Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP5971
Authors: Nicolas Van Zeebroeck; Bruno Van Pottelsberghe; Dominique Guellec
Abstract: The joint increase in the number and size of patents filed around the world puts the patent system under pressure. This paper analyses the sources of this surge in number of claims and pages of patent applications at the EPO. Four hypotheses are scrutinized: the diffusion of national drafting practices, the increasing complexity of inventions, the emergence of new sectors, and new patenting strategies. The results show that the increasing voluminosity is explained by all these hypotheses and suggest that the diffusion of the US model through the PCT is one of the major factors driving the size of EPO patent applications.
Keywords: claim drafting; IP strategy; patent applications; patent systems; patent voluminosity
JEL Codes: O31; O34; O50
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| diffusion of the US patent model through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) (O34) | size of EPO patent applications (O34) |
| technological complexity (O33) | size of EPO patent applications (O34) |
| emerging sectors (O17) | size of EPO patent applications (O34) |
| patenting strategies (O34) | size of EPO patent applications (O34) |