Tag: Patents

Patent Policy and American Innovation after eBay: An Empirical Examination

Timothy Simcoe and Filippo Mezzanotti

After the Supreme Court ruled that courts should not automatically enter injunctions against patent infringers, some commentators feared that the decision would hinder innovation and growth in the U.S. More than ten years later, this paper examines the data to see whether those fears came true.

How Essential are Standard-Essential Patents?

Mark Lemley and Timothy Simcoe

This paper explores what happens when standard-essential patents (SEPs) go to court. The authors found that, contrary to their expectations, SEPs are more likely to be held valid than non-SEP patents, but they are significantly less likely to be infringed. In other words, SEPs, once in court, do not seem to be all that essential. One cause, the authors found, comes from the assertion of SEP patent rights by so-called patent trolls, which has implications in policy debates over both SEPs and patent trolls.

Allocating Patent Litigation Risk Across the Supply Chain

Michael J. Meurer

Although the paradigmatic defendant in a patent infringement lawsuit is a vertically integrated manufacturer, modern supply chains now include many different businesses, each of which must contemplate the risk of patent infringement when entering into the contracts to form those chains. This paper provides some guidance on best practices for terms of indemnification agreements that address both efficient risk management and effective bargaining against a patent-plaintiff.

Foreign Competition and Domestic Innovation: Evidence from U.S. Patents

David Autor with David Dorn, Gordon H. Hanson, Gary Pisano, and Pian Shu.

Manufacturing is the locus of U.S. innovation, accounting for more than three quarters of U.S. corporate patents. The rise of import competition from China has represented a major competitive shock to the sector, which in theory could benefit or stifle innovation. In this paper we empirically examine how rising import competition from China has affected U.S. innovation.