IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cep/stieip/46.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Patent Thickets and the Market for Innovation:Evidence from Settlement of Patent Disputes

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Galasso
  • Mark Schankerman

Abstract

We study how fragmentation of patent rights ('patent thickets') and the formation of theCourt of Appeal for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affected the duration of patent disputes, andthus the speed of technology diffusion through licensing. We develop a model of patentlitigation which predicts faster settlement agreements when patent rights are fragmented andwhen there is less uncertainty about court outcomes, as was associated with the 'pro-patentshift' of CAFC. The model also predicts that the impact of fragmentation on settlementduration should be smaller under CAFC. We confirm these predictions empirically using adataset that covers nearly all patent suits in U.S. federal district courts during the period1975-2000. Finally, we analyze how fragmentation affects total settlement delay, taking intoaccount both reduction in duration per dispute and the increase in the number of requiredpatent negotiations associated with patent thickets.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Galasso & Mark Schankerman, 2008. "Patent Thickets and the Market for Innovation:Evidence from Settlement of Patent Disputes," STICERD - Economics of Industry Papers 46, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:cep:stieip:46
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/ei/ei46.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Shahid Yusuf & Kaoru Nabeshima, 2009. "Growth through Innovation : An Industrial Strategy for Shanghai," World Bank Publications - Reports 18613, The World Bank Group.
    2. Rockett, Katharine, 2010. "Property Rights and Invention," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 315-380, Elsevier.
    3. Nikolaus Thumm & Garry Gabison, 2016. "Patent Assertion Entities in Europe: Their impact on innovation and knowledge transfer in ICT markets," JRC Research Reports JRC103321, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
    4. Iain M. Cockburn & Megan J. MacGarvie & Elisabeth Müller, 2010. "Patent thickets, licensing and innovative performance," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 19(3), pages 899-925, June.
    5. Darcy, Jacques & Krämer-Eis, Helmut & Guellec, Dominique & Debande, Olivier, 2009. "Financing technology transfer," EIB Papers 10/2009, European Investment Bank, Economics Department.
    6. Bronwyn H. Hall, 2010. "The Financing of Innovative Firms," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 1(1).
    7. Bottazzi, Laura, 2009. "The role of venture capital in alleviating financial constraints of innovative firms," EIB Papers 9/2009, European Investment Bank, Economics Department.
    8. Harhoff, Dietmar, 2009. "The role of patents and licenses in securing external finance for innovation," EIB Papers 11/2009, European Investment Bank, Economics Department.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    patents; anti-commons; patent thickets; litigation; settlement.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process
    • L24 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Contracting Out; Joint Ventures
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:cep:stieip:46. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/ .

    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.