Procrastination at the Patent Office?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Frakes, Michael D.; Wasserman, Melissa F.
• 署名单位: Duke University; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104140
• 发表日期: 2020
• 关键词: Patent office; Innovation policy; Patent quality; procrastination; Deadline effects; present bias

摘要

Pointing to a limited set of statistics suggesting that examiners turn in much of their work product at the end of quota periods, the Commerce Department has recently raised concerns over examiner procrastination and its consequences for examination quality. End-loading of review completions alone, however, is not diapositive evidence of procrastination. In this paper, we confirm that examiners complete a substantial percentage of reviews at the end of both bi-weekly and quarterly quotas and then proceed to test for additional markers that may separate a procrastination explanation for these findings from a range of alternative theories. Among other tests explored in this regard, we predict and find evidence of an immediate spike in end-loading upon the onset of examiner telecommuting, a change in work environments that likely exacerbates self-control problems. Our findings support a procrastination interpretation for at least some portion of the observed end-loading of reviews, with our outcomes analysis suggesting that the predominant consequence of this behavior for examination quality is an increase in examination durations. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.