Chapter 1: Be a proactive IP user – timing IP for impact

Applicant behaviours and outcomes

The Motu/EPFL study found that applicants who speed up examination using IP Australia’s freely available options for doing so tend to experience better post-grant outcomes. They are more likely to renew, commercialise and build on their patents.

Applicants who wait until they are directed to request examination tend to have weaker post-grant outcomes, such as a shorter patent lifetime and less commercialisation.

This trend is particularly evident for large businesses. 

• Large businesses are more likely than small businesses to request examination early and unprompted, rather than waiting to be directed. Based on the study’s data, 49% of RFEs from large businesses are undirected, compared to 35% from small businesses. When large businesses do request examination unprompted, they tend to do so more quickly than small businesses.
• When large businesses wait to request examination, this appears to be due to inertia rather than specific benefits from longer wait times. For instance, large businesses are less likely than small businesses to renew a patent after delaying examination.
• For large businesses, faster office processing – fewer delays caused by the patent office in examination – has a strong impact in enhancing economic outcomes. Faster processing is linked to a greater likelihood of the business commercialising a patent and more follow-on innovation by the business building on their patent.

These results suggest that for large businesses delays may pose a barrier to market entry. In contrast, delays appear to be particularly beneficial for small innovators.

• Small businesses are more likely than large businesses to delay the examination process.
• Compared to large businesses, small businesses are more likely to renew a patent that they have delayed.
• Small businesses are less impacted by office-side delays in the likelihood that they will commercialise a patent as a product or engage in follow-on innovation over the long term.

While large foreign businesses often seek to speed up patent outcomes, domestic Australian businesses act more like small foreign businesses: they tend to wait longer to request examination, possibly due to resource limitations or strategic consideration. Compared to their foreign counterparts, domestic businesses appear to build more strongly on their patents after delaying the examination process, referencing their original patent in multiple follow-on patents.

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