Quarterly newsletter from the Office of the Chief Economist

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United States Patent and Trademark Office

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF ECONOMIST

Quarterly Newsletter, Fall 2022

Latest updates from the Office of the Chief Economist (OCE):

1 RESEARCH FINDINGS

IP Data Highlights: Where are U.S. women patentees? Assessing three decades of growth

This newly released report uses county-level data to highlight where women inventors are patenting and to identify local economic factors that are correlated with women’s participation. One notable finding reveals that women’s participation is expanding geographically. From 1990-2019, 411 more U.S. counties reported having women patentees, a 32% increase.

For more information, including the supplementary material and county maps of women patentees, view the reports page.

USPTO pilot program reduced gender disparities in patenting

OCE recently released an IP Economic Note and working paper examining the causal impacts from the first randomized control trial (RCT) undertaken by the USPTO. The RCT, which focused on patent applicants without legal representation (pro se applicants), aimed to improve examination outcomes. The analysis demonstrates that additional guidance and communication during patent examination was an effective way to improve patent examination outcomes for pro se applicants, especially for women. An extended abstract of the paper was published in the 2022 Academy of Management (AOM) Proceedings (top 10% of submitted conference papers), and the paper was also awarded Best Paper Finalist for the Technology and Innovation Management (TIM) Division of AOM (top three of all TIM submitted papers).

Challenges facing independent inventors: Do patents help?

Independent inventors face several challenges related to successful commercialization. OCE recently published an extended abstract in the 2022 AOM Proceedings documenting the benefits received by independent inventors from patenting. The paper also won the Best Paper Award for the Technology and Innovation Management Division of AOM.


2 DATA RESOURCES

Patent Examination Research Dataset update

OCE released an updated Patent Examination Research Dataset (PatEx). The 2021 update contains information on over 13.5 million U.S. patent applications filed with the USPTO through June 2022, including information on their examination and continuation histories.

PatentsView data update

PatentsView has updated data through June 30, 2022. This update brings with it substantial changes, including:

Note: Inventor genders have been attributed through the end of 2021. For more information, see the release notes.


3 NEWS

Past event: Advancing research on inventor demographics

OCE and the American Institutes for Research hosted a symposium, “Advancing research on inventor demographics,” that brought together economists, computer scientists and others to discuss cutting edge research methods in the area of inventor demographics. OCE would like to thank the participating speakers and attendees for their contributions to this workshop. For more information on the speakers and papers, please visit the visit the symposium page.

Past event: EPIP 2022 Annual Conference

OCE sponsored the 2022 European Policy for Intellectual Property (EPIP) PhD workshop and the Chief Economist panel. The workshop introduced PhD students to the latest theory and data on the law and economics of IP, and gave them opportunities to receive career advice and obtain feedback on their work. The panel discussed the role of IP for addressing global challenges.

Chief Economist Speaker Series

OCE hosted Professor Neil Thompson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for the OCE Chief Economist Speaker Series. More information on the speakers is available on our events page.


Follow the USPTO on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn) for the latest updates. Additional updates are available at the USPTO Economic research webpage.

Thank you,
The OCE team

Office of the Chief Economist
Office of Policy and International Affairs
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Department of Commerce

Phone: 571-272-6900
economics@uspto.gov

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