Patent privateering, litigation, and R&D incentives

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lemus, Jorge; Temnyalov, Emil
• 署名单位: University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; University of Technology Sydney
• 刊物名称: RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0741-6261
• DOI: 10.1111/1756-2171.12211
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 1004-1026
• 关键词: MARKET-STRUCTURE; entities

摘要

We model patent privateeringwhereby producing firms sell patents to Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs), which then license them under the threat of litigationin a bargaining game. PAEs can negotiate higher licensing fees than producing firms because they cannot be countersued for infringement. Privateering produces two countervailing effects: it increases the offensive value of patents, whereas it decreases their defensive value and lowers the aggregate surplus of producing firms. Embedding the bargaining game into a Research and Development (R&D) contest for multiple complementary technologies, we find that privateering may increase R&D investments, even as it induces more litigation threats and reduces industry profits.