The patent system grants inventors temporary monopoly rights in exchange for a public disclosure detailing their innovation. These disclosures are meant to allow others to recreate and build on the patented innovation. We examine how the quality of these disclosures affects follow-on innovation. We use the plausibly exogenous assignment to patent applications of examiners who differ in their enforcement of disclosure requirements as a source of variation in disclosure quality. We find that some examiners are significantly more lenient with respect to patent disclosure quality requirements, and that patents granted by these examiners include significantly lower-quality disclosures and generate significantly less follow-on innovation. Overall, our evidence suggests that high-quality patent disclosures create knowledge spillovers that spur follow-on innovation.

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专利公开质量对创新的影响

专利制度授予发明人临时垄断权，以换取公开披露其创新细节。这些披露旨在允许其他人重新创造并建立专利创新。我们研究这些披露的质量如何影响后续创新。我们利用执行公开要求不同的审查员对专利申请的合理外生转让作为公开质量变化的来源。我们发现，一些审查员对专利公开质量要求明显更为宽松，并且这些审查员授予的专利包括质量明显较低的公开内容，并且产生的后续创新明显较少。总体而言，我们的证据表明，高质量的专利披露会产生知识溢出，从而刺激后续创新。