Assessing abandoned patents at the INPI

We identified two main factors that affect productivity in the INPI: (i) 40% of patent examiners are not currently examining patent applications at all, as they are busy performing activities other than examination; and (ii) those patent examiners who are examining patents are doing so at a significantly slow pace—on average, three examinations a month in 2015. We explored these two points in our previous article (WIPR April/May 2016).