Claiming more: the increased voluminosity of patent applications and its determinants

Nicolas van Zeebroeck, Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potter () and Dominique Guellec

No 06-018.RS, Working Papers CEB from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: The joint increase in the number and size of patents filed around the world puts the patent system under pressure. This paper analyses the sources of this surge in number of claims and pages of patent applications at the EPO. Four hypotheses are scrutinized: the diffusion of national drafting practices, the increasing complexity of inventions, the emergence of new sectors, and new patenting strategies. The results show that the increasing voluminosity is explained by all these hypotheses and suggest that the diffusion of the US model through the PCT is one of the major factors driving the size of EPO patent applications.

Keywords: Patent voluminosity; Patent applications; IP strategy; Claim drafting; Patent systems. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O31 O34 O50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 p.
Date: 2006
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ino and nep-tid
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Published by:

Downloads: (external link)
https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/5391 ... ol_wpaper_06-018.pdf RePEc_sol_wpaper_06-018 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Claiming more: the Increased Voluminosity of Patent Applications and its Determinants (2009)
Working Paper: Claiming more: the increased voluminosity of patent applications and its determinants (2009)
Working Paper: Claiming More: The Increased Voluminosity of Patent Applications and its Determinants (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sol:wpaper:06-018

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://hdl.handle.ne ... ulb.ac.be:2013/53916

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers CEB from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Benoit Pauwels ().