Conflict Resolution, Public Goods, and Patent Thickets

Dietmar Harhoff (), Georg von Graevenitz and Stefan Wagner

Management Science, 2016, vol. 62, issue 3, 704-721

Abstract: 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. This paper was accepted by Lee Fleming, entrepreneurship and innovation .

Keywords: microeconomic behavior; industrial organization; firm objectives; organization and behavior; market structure; firm strategy; market performance; patent system; patent litigation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2015.2152 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Conflict Resolution, Public Goods and Patent Thickets (2014)
Working Paper: Conflict Resolution, Public Goods and Patent Thickets (2013)
Working Paper: Conflict resolution, public goods and patent thickets (2013)
Working Paper: Conflict Resolution, Public Goods and Patent Thickets (2013)
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