Amir Kazempour (Research Plan)

Introduction

The research plan at this point consists of roughly 5 separate smaller tasks. Namely, data project relevant to the little guy paper, Lex Machina data pull which is a vital step to get started with the little guy paper, application for the SBA funding for little guy paper and improving and updating wiki pages relevant to the little guy project and Marcela's work on patent litigation process.

Data Project

We have found few issues with the patent database which need to be addressed in order to have the datasets required for the little guy paper.

1. USPTO historical assignment data
   • The issue with table keys is potentially resolved.
   • Create a table to enable us to track patent ownership through the life of a patent.
2. Assignees data
   • Identify U.S. assignees in the data for all assignees without a valid country or state entry.
3. Maintenance fee data
   • Create a table with all the active patents and their expected remaining life using the maintenance fee event codes.
4. Citation data
   • We need to recognize patterns in the cited patent numbers. A low hanging fruit would be to match all the publication numbers to the granted patent numbers in the histpatent table. Few other repeating patterns seem to point to foreign issued patents.

Lex Machina data pull

A data pull proposal/request has been prepared. We need to get in touch with Brian to discuss the first pull. Upon acquiring the first data pull, we need to assess feasibility of the little guy paper as discussed in the proposal mentioned above.

Little guy paper

We need to consider the possibility of new research questions based on the hypotheses discussed in Lerner, Josh, Andrew Speen, and Ann Leamon. "The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act: A Preliminary Examination of Its Impact on Small Businesses."

Further progress on the paper is conditional on the first data pull from Lex Machina.

Wiki pages

Making sure that:

• All the SQL codes are available on the wiki and are up to date.
• Full data description for the USPTO database and the USPTO historical assignment data are available on the wiki.
• Pages are linked correctly.

SBA grant application

The goal is to go over the Instruction to Offerors and Statement of Work documents, both available on Research on the Changing Value of Patents to Startups page, and gauge the compatibility of the little guy paper's research question with the one in these documents. The main focus for the literature review will be on Lerner, Josh, Andrew Speen, and Ann Leamon. "The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act: A Preliminary Examination of Its Impact on Small Businesses".