{"365161":{"#nid":"365161","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Inventors choose to reveal their secret sauce before patent approval","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ECommon wisdom and prior economic research suggest that an inventor filing a patent would want to keep the technical know-how secret as long as possible. But a new study of nearly 2 million patents in the United States shows that inventors are not as concerned with secrecy as previously thought. Researchers found that since 2000, most inventors when given the choice opted to disclose information about their patents before patent approval \u2013 even small inventors \u2013 and this disclosure correlates with more valuable patents.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cDo inventors really value the secrecy that economists assumed they did based on the prior literature? Our findings are that overwhelmingly, and in every category that we can test, inventors don\u2019t,\u201d said\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/scheller.gatech.edu\/directory\/faculty\/graham\/\u0022\u003EStuart Graham\u003C\/a\u003E, study co-author and assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology\u2019s Scheller College of Business. Graham was the first-ever chief economist appointed at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), serving in the U.S. Department of Commerce while on leave from Georgia Tech from 2010 to 2013.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe study, co-authored with Deepak Hegde (New York University), will be published January 16 in the journal \u003Cem\u003EScience\u003C\/em\u003E, and was sponsored in part by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn 2000, the length of time that inventors could keep patents secret after filing was cut in half. The American Inventors Protection Act (AIPA) was passed into law that year, requiring publication of patent applications 18 months after first filing. Prior to 2000, the applications of inventors filed only in the U.S. were kept secret and made public after approval, typically 36 months after filing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDuring the congressional debate over the AIPA, prominent inventors raised concerns that reduced secrecy would harm not only small inventors, but undermine the inventive spirit of the United States. So a loophole was included in the AIPA, allowing inventors to maintain secrecy of their patent applications if they were not also filing for parallel foreign patent protection on the same invention. In the U.S., that accounts for about half the granted patents.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe change in the law created an opportunity for Graham and his colleague Deepak Hegde, an assistant professor of management and organizations at NYU\u2019s Stern School of Business, to examine which inventors were choosing to opt into the secrecy loophole, and whether their patents differed in important ways. They examined 1.8 million granted patents filed at the USPTO from 1995 to 2005 and analyzed the disclosure preferences of the inventors. Their analysis found that, among those not seeking foreign protection, about 85 percent of inventors filing a patent since 2000 chose to disclose information about their patents prior to their approval.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOverwhelmingly, those inventors patenting only in the U.S. are choosing 18 month disclosure,\u201d co-author Hegde said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe patents examined in the study are called utility patents, which are available on new and useful processes, machines, manufactured articles, or compositions, and protect technologies like software, laptops, medical devices, and drugs. These are the commonest type of patent with more than 570,000 filed at the USPTO in 2013, each containing technical information. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen the AIPA was passed, one of the biggest complaints was that the publication requirement would hurt U.S. small inventors, but the researchers found that individuals and small companies still opted for disclosure during the study period.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSmall U.S. inventors are not choosing the secrecy route,\u201d Graham said. \u201cWhen they patent only in the U.S., they are choosing secrecy in only about 15 percent of the cases, not statistically different than the rate among all other types of inventors.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnother major complaint of the AIPA was that disclosing patent secrets would stop the engine of innovation in the United States and that society would get less meaningful inventions. Contrary to these arguments, the researchers found that patents born out of secrecy were overall less valuable than those that opted for disclosure.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen we examine indicators of patent value, we find consistent evidence that the least-valuable and least-impactful patents are those that opted for pre-grant secrecy,\u201d Hegde said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe authors point out that more patent information, provided to society earlier, could be socially beneficial. Publishing patent information earlier may provide a head start for other innovators, and may help society avoid unnecessary duplicative research spending, the researchers said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe have limited resources in our society that we can invest in innovation and invention,\u201d Graham said. \u201cTo the extent that we can more efficiently choose projects and avoid wasteful, redundant efforts, then that\u2019s good for us as a society.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFuture work will involve pinpointing why inventors are choosing not to keep their patent information secret until grant. Some possible answers are that disclosure acts as an early signal to competitors to not innovate in that technology space, or announces to potential licensees that a technology is coming to the marketplace and may be available as an input for someone else\u2019s manufacturing or engineering process.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis study is a first window into what inventors are really doing. The next question is why are they doing it?\u201d Graham said. \u201cIt remains for us to figure out why inventors seeking to maximize the value of their inventions are not particularly interested in pre-patent secrecy.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis research is supported in part by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation under D.H.\u2019s Kauffman Junior Faculty Fellowship. Any conclusions or opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the sponsoring agency.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECITATION\u003C\/strong\u003E: Stuart Graham and Deepak Hegde. \u0022Disclosing patents\u2019 secrets.\u0022 (\u003Cem\u003EScience\u003C\/em\u003E, January 2015). DOI: 10.1126\/science.1262080\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology\u003Cbr \/\u003E 177 North Avenue\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, Georgia\u0026nbsp; 30332-0181\u0026nbsp; USA\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/twitter.com\/GTResearchNews\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E@GTResearchNews\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts\u003C\/strong\u003E: Brett Israel (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/twitter.com\/btiatl\u0022\u003E@btiatl\u003C\/a\u003E) (404-385-1933) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) or John Toon (404-894-6986) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: Brett Israel\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers found that since 2000, most inventors when given the choice opted to disclose information about their patents before patent approval \u2013 even small inventors \u2013 and this disclosure correlates with more valuable patents."}],"uid":"27902","created_gmt":"2015-01-16 14:53:13","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:54","author":"Brett Israel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-01-16T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2015-01-16T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"365151":{"id":"365151","type":"image","title":"Stuart Graham","body":null,"created":"1449245805","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:16:45","changed":"1475895100","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:40","alt":"Stuart Graham","file":{"fid":"202104","name":"stuartgraham_x02.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/stuartgraham_x02_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/stuartgraham_x02_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":296692,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/stuartgraham_x02_0.jpg?itok=2g1SXCY4"}}},"media_ids":["365151"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"139","name":"Business"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1543","name":"patents"},{"id":"169703","name":"stuart graham"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBrett Israel\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404-385-1933\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}