An Empirical Study on Experiential Learning of Japanese Patent Attorneys

Although many studies on learning curves have focused on a group and organizational level, few empirical studies of individuals' direct experiential learning have been conducted. This is somewhat strange, given that individual learning is the foundation for all other levels of learning. This study focuses on the experiential learning of professionals and empirically analyzes the learning effect. While learning curve research has treated the experience as a bundling concept, we divide experience into four subcategories to uncover the detailed effects. They are general experience, task-specific experience, breadth of experience, and depth of experience. We use 722 Japanese patent attorneys who owned individual firms and 701,306 patent data they represented, which constitute a panel dataset from 2002 to 2010. Fix-effects regression is employed to investigate the effect of patent attorney experience on patent grant lag (i.e., time to be granted). The results show that general experience and depth of experience have a negative effect on patent grant lag. This study provides insight into a deeper understanding of learning curve and the underlying mechanism of professionals’ individual experiential learning and extends the narrow focus on Western professionals.