By Eric Blatt and Lian Huang ( July 23, 2018, 1:23 PM EDT) -- U.S. Patent and Trademark Office human resource policies influence patentability decisions, potentially increasing the rate at which examiners issue allowances. In our new study published in the American Intellectual Property Law Association's Quarterly Journal, we — former patent examiners — analyze the impact of production and quality incentives on the quality of patentability decisions. Our conclusions are based on an empirical analysis of USPTO transaction data from 2001 to 2012. In addition to finding that USPTO incentive policies may increase allowance rate, we find that applying strong quality incentives may mitigate this effect, and that strong quality incentives may further encourage examiners to withdraw erroneous rejections and provoke fewer ex parte appeals....