This paper studies the determinants of patent suits and settlements during 1978-99 by linking information from the U.S. patent office, the federal courts, and industry sources. We find that litigation risk is much higher for patents that are owned by individuals and firms with small patent portfolios. Patentees with a large portfolio of patents to trade, or other characteristics that facilitate "cooperative" resolution of disputes, are much less likely to prosecute infringement suits. However, postsuit outcomes do not depend on these characteristics. These findings show that small patentees are at a significant disadvantage in protecting their patent rights because their greater litigation risk is not offset by more rapid resolution of their suits. Our empirical estimates of the heterogeneity in litigation risk can help in developing private patent litigation insurance to mitigate the adverse affects of high enforcement costs.
Download Info
To our knowledge, this item is not available for
download. To find whether it is available, there are three
options:
1. Check below under "Related research" whether another version of this item is available online.
2. Check on the provider's web page
whether it is in fact available.
3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be
available.
Contact details of provider: Postal: The University of Chicago Press, Journals Division, P.O. Box 37005 Chicago, IL 60637 Fax: (773) 753-0811 Email: Web page: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLE/
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).
Related research
Keywords:
Other versions of this item:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)