From Arms Race to Marketplace: The New Complex Patent Ecosystem and Its Implications for the Patent System

60 Pages Posted: 7 Nov 2010 Last revised: 24 Mar 2011

Date Written: November 5, 2010

Abstract

For years, high-tech companies have amassed patents in order to deter patent litigation. Recently, a secondary market for patents has flourished, making it more likely that patents obtained for defensive purposes will end up in the courtroom. This article explores the current patent ecosystem, which includes both “arms race” and “marketplace” paradigms, in depth. I distinguish “patent assertion entities,” entities that use patents primarily to obtain license fees rather than to support the development or transfer of technology, from other types of non-practicing entities. I contrast the patent arms race, whose goal is to provide entities with the freedom to operate, with the marketplace, through which entities have leveraged their freedom to litigate. I detail the participation of product companies as well as non-practicing companies and their intermediaries in the marketplace, and trace the diverse “pathways” traveled by patents, for example from companies like Micron and other large product companies, to entities like Round Rock and Intellectual Ventures.

Several implications follow. First, the failure of the patent arms race to deter lawsuits from both non-practicing and practicing entities means that defensive strategies must be reconceptualized to include new tactics - including prevention, disruption, and coordination - for securing freedom to operate. In addition, if stockpiles of unused patents patent continue to fall into the hands of patent-assertion entities, there is a real potential that, defensive patenting will inadvertantly increase, rather than decrease, litigation risk. Second, conventional notions of patent value need to be revised. The same patent has a much greater “exclusion value” - which I define as the value likely to be extracted from the patent – when held by a patent assertion entity rather than a company vulnerable to countersuit. A better understanding of what drives the exclusion value rather than the intrinsic value of a patent might help companies predict and potentially avoid technical areas where patent assertion is most likely. Finally, recent history suggests trying to change the system by changing patentee behavior directly, rather than only through legal changes. Specifically, by encouraging quality patenting, improving coordination between patent defendants, and creating a non-profit organization to accept patent donations in order to encourage companies to make their unused patents available to the public, rather than to patent-assertion entities.

Keywords: patents, empirical, arms race, patent strategy, IT

Suggested Citation

Chien, Colleen V., From Arms Race to Marketplace: The New Complex Patent Ecosystem and Its Implications for the Patent System (November 5, 2010). Hastings Law Journal, Vol. 62, p. 297, December 2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1703557

Colleen V. Chien (Contact Author)

UC Berkeley School of Law ( email )

302 JSP
2240 Piedmont Ave
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States
510-664-5254 (Phone)

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