The Impact of Interviews in Patent Examination

Patent examination is not merely a process where examiners determine the patentability of applications; it is also a collaborative process in which applicants and examiners work together to create rights that contribute to business and innovation activities. This paper focuses on interviews conducted during the examination process and analyzes their impact on the scope and stability of patent rights. In 2014, Japan revised its guidelines regarding interviews, stipulating that, in principle, at least one interview should be conducted if requested by the applicant. This paper employs an instrumental variable estimation using this policy change to address endogeneity issues, highlighting that significant inventions are more likely to involve interview requests, which, in turn, correlate with broader patent scopes and potentially lower stability.

We find that the revision of the guidelines led to an increase in face-to-face interviews. Furthermore, the results show that these interviews mitigated the reduction in the scope of rights, as measured by changes in the number of words stipulated in claims. Additionally, the probability of post-grant invalidation trials was shown to decrease due to interviews, indicating enhanced stability of the rights. This suggests that the process of incorporating applicants’ requests during interviews does not result in excessively broad patent scopes. In other words, interviews promote mutual understanding between applicants and examiners, contributing to the creation of appropriately scoped patent rights by preventing undue narrowing or broadening of claims.

Therefore, promoting interviews while managing associated costs, through measures such as the development of online interview environments, is expected to enhance the innovation-promoting effect of the patent system.