Does the Political Ideology of Patent Examiners Matter? An Empirical Investigation

This study examines the relationship between the political ideology of patent examiners and their propensity to grant patents. Patent protection has long been recognized as a critical component of a firm’s ability to appropriate returns from innovative efforts and sustain potential competitive advantages. Using a newly constructed database which allows us to infer the ideology of patent examiners through their political contributions, our fixed-effects estimates suggest that liberal-leaning examiners tend to grant more patents, while conservative-leaning examiners tend to grant less renewable energy patents. Our study suggests more research is warranted to determine if examiners function as “ideological gatekeepers” while also underscoring that little is known about how political ideology may influence other aspects of the innovative process.