TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lemley, Mark A
TI  - Fixing the Patent Office
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18081
PY  - 2012
Y2  - May 2012
DO  - 10.3386/w18081
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18081
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18081.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Mark Lemley
Stanford University
E-Mail: mlemley@law.stanford.edu
M1  - published as Mark A. Lemley. "Fixing the Patent Office," in Josh Lerner and Scott Stern, editors, "Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 13" University of Chicago Press (2013)

M3  - presented at "Innovation Policy and the Economy 2012", April 17, 2012
AB  - How can we allow patent examiners to effectively distinguish between patentable and unpatentable inventions, without slowing the process to a crawl or wasting a bunch of money? This essay reviews the recent literature and considers a number of proposals and their limitations. It concludes that the system can be improved, but that we are unlikely to solve the problem of bad patents altogether. The focus in reform discussions should be on understanding and changing applicant and examiner incentives rather than simply spending money.
ER  -