Patent examiners more likely to approve marginal inventions when pressed for time

The less time patent examiners are given to review an application, the more likely they are to grant patent protection to inventions 'on the margin,' says a study. The researchers found that an examiner's promotion to each subsequent step-up in pay equated to a 10- to 15-percent decrease in the number of hours allocated to review a patent application. Examiners operating at the highest level were expected to review an application in about half the time allocated to examiners at the lowest level, according to the paper.

Read the whole article on Science Daily

More from Science Daily