[raphman]

What are these incentives?

(I recently learned that examiners at the European Patent Office have no direct incentives for granting a patent and may internally bill more working time if they reject a patent application instead. However, as rejecting an application requires a lot more research than granting a patent, examiners still might have an incentive to just grant a patent.)

[dhume]

From what I've heard, it's combination of time restrictions for reviewing a patent and penalizing rejections that later get overturned when the applicant appeals the decision.