Does the Patent and Trademark Office's (PTO’s) budgetary structure
influence the rate at which patents are granted? In Does Agency Funding Affect Decision Making?: An Empirical Assessment of the PTO’s Granting Patterns, 66 Vanderbilt Law Review (forthcoming 2013), Professors Melissa Wasserman and Michael Frakes analyze
more than two decades of patent grant rates to identify how factors like entity
size and technology affect an applicant’s ability to receive a patent. The results of this study suggest that
financial incentives, and not just the merits of the invention, may be, in
part, driving patentability decisions.
The Article lays the premise for
its argument by first establishing the fee structure of the PTO. Historically, the PTO was funded by
the taxpayer. But in 1991, the funding
of the PTO was changed so that user fees would comprise close to 100% of the
Agency’s budget. During this time,
Congress retained fee setting authority and required the PTO to receive
Congressional approval to spend the collected fees. Since 2004, the PTO’s
budget has been determined by its anticipated revenue stream; leading to budget
surplus in some years and deficits in others.
Yet, as vital as these fees are to the operation of the PTO, many fees
don’t match up with their associated expenses.
The Authors highlight that examination
fees make up 30% of the PTO’s budget. In
2011, it cost the PTO $3,600 to examine a patent; however, the large entity
examination fee was only $1,090. This
cost discrepancy is further exasperated if an applicant qualifies as a small entity,
as their examination fees are reduced by 50%.
Therefore, the PTO becomes reliant on maintenance fees to make up the cost
difference. Maintenance fees are
required to be paid every 3½, 7½ and 11½ years in order to maintain the
patent’s protection. Again, these fees are reduced if the payer is a small
entity. The Authors argue this
dependence on back-end fees may incentivize the PTO to grant more patents than
it normally would allow.
Next, the Authors address several
factors that are likely to influence an application’s grant rate. As previously discussed, entity size plays a large role in the fees collected by the PTO. A PTO that is responsive to this fee
differential can instruct examiners to grant more patents filed by large
entities relative to patents filed by small entities. Additionally, the PTO is
likely to be cognizant of the likelihood a given technology will pay a
maintenance fee. A PTO that is responsive to the profitability implications of
varying renewal rates may then instruct examiners to grant more patents in
certain technology classifications relative to others.
So what results did the study show?
It appears that the PTO is not universally seeking to expand its revenues in
response to the incentives created by its user-fee funded structure. Rather, it
may tend to use its granting practices as a revenue-generating tool only when
necessary to sustain itself. The data
shows that, following the adoption of a fully-user fee funded system, the PTO
granted patents at an incrementally higher rate to patents within
high-maintenance-rate categories relative to those within
lower-maintenance-rate categories.
Importantly, the data shows that this behavior is increased when the PTO
is in need of more funds. With respect
to entity size, the data supports the view that, after the 1991 fee reform,
large entities have a 9% higher grant rate than small entities. Like renewal rates, it appears that the PTO
distorts its behavior so as to increase grant rates to large entities when it
is financially constrained.
This study undoubtedly will provide
important insights for the PTO, as the America Invents Act has recently granted
the Agency with fee setting authority. On February 7, 2012, the PTO released
its proposed fee changes. The Office proposed a 47.2% increase in examination
fees (combined filing, search, and examination fees). Similarly, the PTO suggested a 46.9% rise in
maintenance fees (assuming all three renewal fees are paid). While these
proposed changes would appear to do little to alleviate the problems exposed by
the Authors, the PTO has also proposed raising fees associated with patent
rejections, reexaminations, and inter partes reviews. The PTO has proposed significant increases
for filing requests for continued examination (83% increase), appeals (142% increase), ex parte reexamination
(600% increase), and inter partes review.
These changes would make the fees commensurate with the costs of the
services. It will be interesting to see
the impact these proposed fees have on future grant rates and whether the PTO
will tweak their fees over time to react to budgetary biases.
Posted by Bryan Parrish (bparrish@smu.edu), a registered
patent agent, research assistant to Sarah Tran, and a 2014
Juris Doctor candidate at SMU Dedman School of Law.
