특허심사기간이 특허무효심판 청구에 미치는 영향

Patent examination should persue two conflicting goals which are ‘promoting innovation’ and ‘reducing deadweight loss’ caused by invalidly granted patents. The policy instrument of patent office to harmonize counter-related goals is examination duration. This study empirically analyzed the effect of examination duration on the administrative invalidation trial with 866,782 patents registered in Korea Intellectual Property Office. The empirical results show that 1 month increase in the examination request lag is associated with the decrease in the probability of administrative invalidation trial request 3.82% and adding 1 month to the examination duration of examiner is associated with the decrease in the probability of administrative invalidation trial request 7.13%. The fact that deferred examination request is negatively related to the administrative invalidation trial implies that applicants defer examination request not to use patents strategically but to self-screen their application. Also, the negative relation of examination duration of examiner and administrative invalidation trial suggests that patent office should not simply accelerate examination considering the problems may caused by increased administrative invalidation trial.