经济与社会科学2018papers.nber.org
专利审查员被监管俘获的证据
Evidence of regulatory capture of patent examiners
进阶 · 约 60 分钟读完前置知识：专利制度基础、计量经济学、监管俘获理论
导读
这篇 NBER 论文研究专利审查员是否存在“监管俘获”：即审查员的审批行为是否因与申请人、律所或未来雇主的利益关联而偏向特定对象，并报告了支持俘获存在的证据。标题指向专利审查环节的激励与“旋转门”问题；具体识别策略和结论细节未在评论中展开。
HN 关注点：专利审查员与企业、律所之间的旋转门是否导致专利授权偏向，以及这对专利质量和创新制度的含义。
HN 评论精选
这几条评论里：质疑 2 补充 2
不久前我看到一个论点：旋转门反而能确保对被监管公司进行更严格的审查。基本逻辑是，监管机构会挖走那些通过胜任监管工作展现出领域专长的人——你会想雇一个没把本职工作做好的人吗？另外，最“强硬”的监管者正是公司不想让他们继续留在原岗位的人，公司宁愿他们站到对面，所以会雇佣他们。软弱或无能的人在原岗位对公司有用，因此不会被挖走。我不确定这是否真的成立，但这些激励论证的方向似乎是对的。由于专利的争辩方式（不在法庭？），这可能不太适用于专利。也许论文涵盖了这些论点……我只读了摘要，没有付费获取全文。
natosaichek查看英文原文
I saw an argument not long ago that the revolving door ensures more rigorous review of the regulated company. Basically, domain experts are hired out of a regulatory agency if they demonstrate their domain expertise by being a competent regulator. Would you want to hire someone who didn't do their job well? Also, the 'toughest' regulators are the ones who the companies don't want in their jobs anymore - they'd rather those people were on the other side of the fence, so they hire them. The people who are soft (or incompetent) are useful in their role, so are left alone, not hired out. Not sure this is actually true, but the incentive arguments seem like they run in the right direction. This may not apply to patents as much as other regulatory agencies due to the way patents are argued (Not in court)? Maybe they cover these arguments in the paper... I just read the abstract and didn't pay to get the whole thing.
我很有兴趣看到一种被纳入许可市场的专利/知识产权制度。可以按市场价值征税：你根据公开市场上收取的版税缴税，或者把知识产权释放到公共领域。
tcbawo查看英文原文
I would be interested to see a patent/intellectual property system that was incorporated into a market for licensing. Taxes would be levied on the market value. You would pay taxes based on the royalties collected in the open market, or you could release intellectual property into the public domain.
专利审查员不必等到离职才为公司工作。许多人已经有全职工作，把专利审查当作副业。他们唯一的要求是回避自己公司或朋友提交的专利。我敢打赌，两家公司很容易达成协议，在专利获批时互相给对方的员工发奖金。
jedberg查看英文原文
The patent examiners don't have to wait till they leave to work for corporate. Many of them already have full time jobs and do patent examination as their side job. Their only requirement is to recuse themselves from patents filed by their company or their friends. I'll bet it's pretty easy for two companies to make a deal to pay bonuses to each other's employees when patents are granted.
我对此相当怀疑：1）授予专利并不一定意味着审查员更宽松，也不意味着申请人得到了好东西。专利有好有坏、有强有弱。高授权率可能表明专利非常窄，只是用来填充公司的季度数字，作为专利意义不大。2）这种高数量、低价值的专利审查策略常见于大型企业案卷，而它们正是雇佣专利律师的人。3）审查员打交道的律师通常受雇于独立律所，真正的客户往往根本不直接接触专利局。4）大型企业申请人常处于技术利基，如特定药物、显示技术或半导体制造。关键是小圈子：如果某人具备审查这类专利的背景，他很可能属于极少数有资格从事该技术的人；若再取得法律学位进入私人执业，很可能遇到自己审查过其专利的实体。某些技术领域全国可能只有几十人同时具备技术和专利法律资格，世界很小。5）律所也一样，这行人数不多，交叉并不罕见。6）坏专利并不好……
patentatt查看英文原文
I’m pretty skeptical: 1) Granting a patent doesn’t necessarily mean that the examiner is more lenient or that the applicant got something good. There are good patents and bad ones, strong ones and weak ones. A high allowance rate may be an indication of very narrow patents which pad corporate quarterly numbers, but don’t have very much significance as patents. 2) This high volume, low value patent prosecution strategy is often seen in large corporate files, the same ones who hire patent attorneys. 3)Examiners deal with an attorney who is usually employed by some independent law firm. The underlying client is often not in direct contact with the patent office at all. 4) those large corporate filers are often in a technology niche. Particular pharma drugs, certain high tech niches like display tech or semiconductor fab, etc. The point is, these are small worlds, and if someone has the background to examine that kind of patent, they are probably in a very small group of people qualified to work on that technology. If they then get a law degree and go into private practice, there’s a good chance they cross paths with an entity that they examined patents of. In some of these tech areas there may be only a few dozen people in total (notionwide) who are qualified in the tech and are in the patent law field, it’s a small world. 5) All the same goes for law firms, there just aren’t that many people in this business, it’s not unlikely to cross paths. 6) bad patents aren’t good. Let me explain. If you’re a patent prosecutor worth your salt, you want a thorough examination. The last thing you want is to have a portfolio of patents which fall apart in IPR. It makes you look really really bad to your clients. hypothetically bribing an examiner is a fools errand, not just in a moral sense, but it’s literally a bad position to be in to get a bunch of bogus patents. Nobody wants that, it’s actually bad. 7) measuring patent quality in terms of citation is a red herring. First, some patents may have a different ‘lifespan’ to when they’re relevant. Some may be immediately cited a bunch, others may linger for a few years before being suddenly relevant due to some other development. But most of all, remember that patents cited on the front page of a patent are largely from the applicant themselves, cited in an IDS. So if a large portfolio starts citing a certain document, it might get cited in 10’s or 100’s of other cases that are somewhat related. And if you’re going to use it as a measure of low quality, that just bolsters my original argument that these would mostly be very narrow patents, a type of low quality but not the type that the public should care about. Shareholders, yes, as it’s a waste of corporate resources. Not anyone else.
历次讨论
- 2018Hacker News 讨论帖159 分 · 59 评
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