Determinants of U.S. Patent Examiners Mobility | University of Waterloo | 200 University Av W| Waterloo, Canada | | Corinne Langinier 1 and Stephanie Lluis 2 USPTO Patent Statistics for Decision Makers Conference, November 2011, Washington Data USPTO website; Hall et al. (2002); Rosters (Sampat) Our data – examiners who granted patents on December 19, 1995 Patent data per examiner Examiner data Tenure (as assistant and primary examiner) Number of patents granted per year (as assistant and primary examiner) Field of expertise Mobility (still at USPTO or not) Motivation and Research Questions Patent examiners have a key role to play in society -- they grant temporary monopoly rights to innovators Important to study patent examiners‘ behavior and to understand the patenting process High attrition rate of patent examiners (GAO, 2008) Our contribution -- study mobility inside and outside the organization What are the determinants of patent examiner‘s mobility? Does technological field have an impact on the mobility of examiners? Is there a correlation between experience, performance, characteristics of granted patents and examiners‘ mobility? Descriptive Statistics Methodology References 1.Cockburn I, S. Kortum and S. Stern (2003). Are All Patent Examiners Equal: Examiners, Patent: Characteristics, and Litigation Outcomes. Washington, National Academy Press. 2.Hall B., A. Jaffe. and M. Trajtenberg (2001). The NBER patent citations data.le: Lessons, insights and methodological tools. NBER 3.Lemley M, and B. Sampat (2011). Examiner Characteristics and Patent Office Outcomes. Forthcoming RESTAT Discussion Mobility Outcomes: left, promotion (SPE, director), no change (still grant patents) 1.Cross-sectional information about examiner mobility (in 2006) Multinomial estimation of the likelihood of mobility outcomes f – multinomial distribution with j=1 assistant, j=2 primary, p j – number of granted patents 2.Longitudinal data (roster from 1992 to 2006) Logit estimations of the likelihood Main findings suggest that 1. Whenever significant, tenure always decreases the likelihood of promotion (or change of task) 2.Tenure as an assistant examiner (measure of talent) has a significant and strong effect on promotion – the shorter time an examiner stays an assistant, the more likely he will be promoted 3.Number of patents granted as assistant has a significant and small effect on left 4.Technological field – drugs and medical (3), electrical and electronic (4) and mechanical) (5) -- has a significant effect on promotion within the organization 5.From longitiudinal estimation -- Switch of art unit increases the likelihood of leaving or of being promoted Findings 1 Department of Economic, University of Alberta 2 Department of Economic, University of Waterloo VariableMeanStd Dev.MinMax Mobility No Mobility Left Promotion Experience Tenure as Primary Examiner (years) Tenure as Assistant Examiner (years) Patent granted per year as Primary Examiner (/100) Patent granted per year as Assistant Examiner (/100) Technological fields Category Category Category Category Category Category Number of Examiners480 Sample statistics LeftPromotionNo change Experience Tenure as Primary Examiner (Years) ***0.017*** (0.004)(0.003)(0.004) Tenure as Assistant Examiner (Years) ***0.051*** (0.014)(0.013)(0.015) Patent Granted per Year as Assistant (/100) ***0.153*** (0.043)(0.059)(0.054) Technological fields Patent/Year as Primary*Tech Cat **0.281*** (0.081)(0.061)(0.082) Patent/Year as Primary*Tech Cat ***0.329*** (0.083)(0.061)(0.084) Patent/Year as Primary*Tech Cat ***-0.244*** (0.092)(0.071)(0.084) Patent/Year as Primary*Tech Cat ***0.271***-0.089* (0.059)(0.044)(0.060) Patent/Year as Primary*Tech Cat ***0.261***-0.133** (0.057)(0.044)(0.054) Patent/Year as Primary*Tech Cat **0.304***-0.157* (0.064)(0.057)(0.071) Art Unit Switcher Dummy0.086* ** (0.055)(0.052)(0.068) Number of Art Unit Switcher *** (0.038)(0.033)(0.044) Log Pseudo Likelihood N480 Effects of Examiner Characteristics on Mobiliy Within and Out Cross-Sectional Sample of Examiners Multinomial Logit Marginal Effects ***: significant at the 1% level, **: significant at the 5% level, *: significant at the 10% level