Conflict Resolution, Public Goods, and Patent Thickets

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Harhoff, Dietmar; von Graevenitz, Georg; Wagner, Stefan
• 署名单位: University of London; Queen Mary University London; European School of Management & Technology
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2015.2152
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 704-721
• 关键词: microeconomic behavior; Industrial Organization; firm objectives; organization and behavior; market structure; Firm strategy; market performance; patent system; patent litigation

摘要

Postgrant validity challenges at patent offices rely on the private initiative of third parties to correct mistakes made by patent offices. We hypothesize that incentives to bring postgrant validity challenges are reduced when many firms benefit from revocation of a patent and when firms are caught up in patent thickets. Using data on opposition to patents at the European Patent Office we show that opposition decreases in fields in which many others profit from patent revocations. Moreover, in fields with a large number of mutually blocking patents, the incidence of opposition is sharply reduced, particularly among large firms and firms that are caught up directly in patent thickets. These findings indicate that postgrant patent review may not constitute an effective correction device for erroneous patent grants in technologies affected by either patent thickets or highly dispersed patent ownership.