IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jknowl/v11y2020i3d10.1007_s13132-018-0578-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are Litigated Patents More Valuable? The Case of LEDs

Author

Listed:
  • Cédric Gossart

    (Université Paris-Saclay)

  • Altay Özaygen

    (Université Paris-Saclay)

  • Müge Özman

    (Université Paris-Saclay)

Abstract

Recently the LED sector has been going through a period of rapid technological change and intensive competition. In rapidly growing technological systems, incumbent firms use a range of intellectual property rights (IPR)-related strategies to gain competitive advantage. This is often accompanied by an increased number of patent lawsuits, which signals a strong IPR regime and can be detrimental to innovation as previously shown for various sectors. In this article we examine the nature of LED-related litigated and non-litigated patents and explore the main drivers of patent lawsuits. From our analysis we obtain four results. First, litigated LED patents are of significantly higher quality compared to non-litigated ones. Second, even though the quality of defended patents is high, two leading plaintiffs are non-practicing entities. Third, litigations generally occur between incumbent firms. Fourth, the 2005 US Energy Policy Act seems to have reshaped the dynamics of innovation in the sector. We discuss the implications of these results with respect to the literature on the effect of litigations on innovation in general, and on eco-innovations in particular.

Suggested Citation

  • Cédric Gossart & Altay Özaygen & Müge Özman, 2020. "Are Litigated Patents More Valuable? The Case of LEDs," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 11(3), pages 825-844, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jknowl:v:11:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s13132-018-0578-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s13132-018-0578-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13132-018-0578-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s13132-018-0578-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lanjouw, Jean O & Schankerman, Mark, 2001. "Characteristics of Patent Litigation: A Window on Competition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(1), pages 129-151, Spring.
    2. Giovanni Dosi & Luigi Marengo & Corrado Pasquali, 2010. "How Much Should Society Fuel the Greed of Innovators? On the Relations between Appropriability, Opportunities and Rates of Innovation," Chapters, in: Riccardo Viale & Henry Etzkowitz (ed.), The Capitalization of Knowledge, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Ghiglino, Christian & Kuschy, Nicole, 2010. "Are Patent Citations Driven by Quality?," Economics Discussion Papers 3001, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    4. Nicolas van Zeebroeck & Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, 2011. "The vulnerability of patent value determinants," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 283-308.
    5. Manuel Trajtenberg, 1990. "A Penny for Your Quotes: Patent Citations and the Value of Innovations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 172-187, Spring.
    6. Bart Verspagen, 2007. "Mapping Technological Trajectories As Patent Citation Networks: A Study On The History Of Fuel Cell Research," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 10(01), pages 93-115.
    7. Useche, Diego, 2014. "Are patents signals for the IPO market? An EU–US comparison for the software industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(8), pages 1299-1311.
    8. Bronwyn H. Hall & Adam Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2005. "Market Value and Patent Citations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(1), pages 16-38, Spring.
    9. repec:fth:harver:1473 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Cecere, Grazia & Corrocher, Nicoletta & Gossart, Cédric & Ozman, Muge, 2014. "Technological pervasiveness and variety of innovators in Green ICT: A patent-based analysis," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(10), pages 1827-1839.
    11. James Bessen & Robert M. Hunt, 2007. "An Empirical Look at Software Patents," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(1), pages 157-189, March.
    12. Zvi Griliches, 1998. "Patent Statistics as Economic Indicators: A Survey," NBER Chapters, in: R&D and Productivity: The Econometric Evidence, pages 287-343, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Hsin-Ning Su & Carey Ming-Li Chen & Pei-Chun Lee, 2012. "Patent litigation precaution method: analyzing characteristics of US litigated and non-litigated patents from 1976 to 2010," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(1), pages 181-195, July.
    14. Reitzig, Markus & Henkel, Joachim & Heath, Christopher, 2007. "On sharks, trolls, and their patent prey--Unrealistic damage awards and firms' strategies of "being infringed"," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 134-154, February.
    15. Mazzoleni, Roberto & Nelson, Richard R., 1998. "The benefits and costs of strong patent protection: a contribution to the current debate," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 273-284, July.
    16. Jean O. Lanjouw & Mark Schankerman, 1997. "Stylized Facts of Patent Litigation: Value, Scope and Ownership," NBER Working Papers 6297, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Arora, Ashish & Fosfuri, Andrea & Gambardella, Alfonso, 2001. "Markets for Technology and Their Implications for Corporate Strategy," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 10(2), pages 419-451, June.
    18. Allred, Brent B. & Park, Walter G., 2007. "The influence of patent protection on firm innovation investment in manufacturing industries," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 91-109, June.
    19. Hung-Chun Huang & Hsin-Yu Shih & Tsung-Han Ke & Pai-Yu Liu, 2015. "Elucidating How Environment Affects Patterns of Network Change: A Case Study of the Evolution of an Industrial Network in the Flat Panel Display Sector," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 6(1), pages 190-213, March.
    20. Joshua Lerner, 1994. "The Importance of Patent Scope: An Empirical Analysis," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(2), pages 319-333, Summer.
    21. Blind, Knut & Cremers, Katrin & Mueller, Elisabeth, 2009. "The influence of strategic patenting on companies' patent portfolios," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 428-436, March.
    22. Dahlin, Kristina B. & Behrens, Dean M., 2005. "When is an invention really radical?: Defining and measuring technological radicalness," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 717-737, June.
    23. Lee Fleming & Olav Sorenson, 2004. "Science as a map in technological search," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(8‐9), pages 909-928, August.
    24. Dietmar Harhoff & Francis Narin & F. M. Scherer & Katrin Vopel, 1999. "Citation Frequency And The Value Of Patented Inventions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(3), pages 511-515, August.
    25. Harhoff, Dietmar & Scherer, Frederic M. & Vopel, Katrin, 2003. "Citations, family size, opposition and the value of patent rights," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1343-1363, September.
    26. Nicolas van Zeebroeck, 2011. "The puzzle of patent value indicators," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 33-62.
    27. Julie Callaert & Bart Van Looy & Arnold Verbeek & Koenraad Debackere & Bart Thijs, 2006. "Traces of Prior Art: An analysis of non-patent references found in patent documents," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 69(1), pages 3-20, October.
    28. James E. Bessen & Michael J. Meurer, 2006. "Patent Litigation with Endogenous Disputes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 77-81, May.
    29. Kristina Dahlin & Deans M. Behrens, 2005. "When is an invention really radical? Defining and measuring technological radicalness," Post-Print hal-00480416, HAL.
    30. Andreas Panagopoulos, 2011. "The Effect of IP Protection on Radical and Incremental Innovation," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 2(3), pages 393-404, September.
    31. Michelle Gittelman & Bruce Kogut, 2003. "Does Good Science Lead to Valuable Knowledge? Biotechnology Firms and the Evolutionary Logic of Citation Patterns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(4), pages 366-382, April.
    32. Pénin, Julien, 2012. "Strategic uses of patents in markets for technology: A story of fabless firms, brokers and trolls," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 633-641.
    33. Andreas Panagopoulos & In‐Uck Park, 2018. "Patents As Negotiating Assets: Patenting Versus Secrecy For Startups," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(615), pages 2876-2894, November.
    34. Jean O. Lanjouw & Mark Schankerman, 2004. "Patent Quality and Research Productivity: Measuring Innovation with Multiple Indicators," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(495), pages 441-465, April.
    35. Fischer, Timo & Henkel, Joachim, 2012. "Patent trolls on markets for technology – An empirical analysis of NPEs’ patent acquisitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(9), pages 1519-1533.
    36. Glenn Hoetker, 2007. "The use of logit and probit models in strategic management research: Critical issues," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 331-343, April.
    37. James Bessen & Michael J. Meurer, 2005. "The Patent Litigation Explosion," Working Papers 0501, Research on Innovation.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Grazia Sveva Ascione & Laura Ciucci & Claudio Detotto & Valerio Sterzi, 2022. "Universities involvement in patent litigation: an analysis of the characteristics of US litigated patents," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 6855-6879, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Appio, Francesco Paolo & Baglieri, Daniela & Cesaroni, Fabrizio & Spicuzza, Lucia & Donato, Alessia, 2022. "Patent design strategies: Empirical evidence from European patents," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    2. Nicolas van Zeebroeck, 2007. "Patents only live twice: a patent survival analysis in Europe," Working Papers CEB 07-028.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    3. Manuel Acosta & Daniel Coronado & Esther Ferrándiz & Manuel Jiménez, 2022. "Effects of knowledge spillovers between competitors on patent quality: what patent citations reveal about a global duopoly," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 1451-1487, October.
    4. Adam B. Jaffe & Gaétan de Rassenfosse, 2017. "Patent citation data in social science research: Overview and best practices," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 68(6), pages 1360-1374, June.
    5. Nicolas van Zeebroeck & Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, 2011. "Filing strategies and patent value," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(6), pages 539-561, February.
    6. Nicolas van Zeebroeck, 2011. "The puzzle of patent value indicators," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 33-62.
    7. Higham, Kyle & de Rassenfosse, Gaétan & Jaffe, Adam B., 2021. "Patent Quality: Towards a Systematic Framework for Analysis and Measurement," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(4).
    8. Antonio Messeni Petruzzelli & Daniele Rotolo & Vito Albino, 2014. "Determinants of Patent Citations in Biotechnology: An Analysis of Patent Influence Across the Industrial and Organizational Boundaries," SPRU Working Paper Series 2014-05, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    9. Barbieri, Nicolò & Marzucchi, Alberto & Rizzo, Ugo, 2020. "Knowledge sources and impacts on subsequent inventions: Do green technologies differ from non-green ones?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(2).
    10. Paola Giuri & Myriam Mariani & Stefano Brusoni & Gustavo Crespi & Dominique Francoz & Alfonso Gambardella & Walter Garcia-Fontes & Aldo Geuna & Raul Gonzales & Dietmar Harhoff & Karin Hoisl & Christia, 2005. "Everything you Always Wanted to Know about Inventors (but Never Asked): Evidence from the PatVal-EU Survey," LEM Papers Series 2005/20, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    11. Antoine Dechezleprêtre & Yann Ménière & Myra Mohnen, 2017. "International patent families: from application strategies to statistical indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(2), pages 793-828, May.
    12. Alessandra Scandura, 2019. "The role of scientific and market knowledge in the inventive process: evidence from a survey of industrial inventors," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 1029-1069, August.
    13. Pierre-Alexandre Balland & David L. Rigby, 2015. "The geography and evolution of complex knowledge," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1502, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jan 2015.
    14. Ugo Rizzo & Nicolò Barbieri & Laura Ramaciotti & Demian Iannantuono, 2020. "The division of labour between academia and industry for the generation of radical inventions," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 393-413, April.
    15. Dirk Czarnitzki & Katrin Hussinger & Cédric Schneider, 2012. "The nexus between science and industry: evidence from faculty inventions," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 37(5), pages 755-776, October.
    16. Kwon, Seokbeom & Drev, Matej, 2020. "Defensive Patent Aggregators as Shields against Patent Assertion Entities? Theoretical and Empirical Analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    17. Sarah Kaplan & Keyvan Vakili, 2015. "The double-edged sword of recombination in breakthrough innovation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(10), pages 1435-1457, October.
    18. Leila Tahmooresnejad & Catherine Beaudry, 2019. "Capturing the economic value of triadic patents," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(1), pages 127-157, January.
    19. Bonaccorsi, Andrea & Thoma, Grid, 2007. "Institutional complementarity and inventive performance in nano science and technology," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 813-831, July.
    20. Juranek, Steffen, 2018. "Investing in legal advice," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 28-46.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jknowl:v:11:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s13132-018-0578-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.