ABSTRACT:
This paper presents an empirical study of the relationship between the type of patentee-plaintiffs and litigation behavior (e.g., settlement, duration, grant of summary judgment, trial, and procedural dispositions) in patent lawsuits. The paper takes into account, among other factors, the technology of the patents being asserted, the judicial districts where these lawsuits were filed, the judge to whom the case is assigned, and the lawyers representing the patent holder. Using a hand coded unique dataset, the different types of patentee-plaintiffs are broken down on a refined basis, distinguishing among operating companies, patent holding companies, large patent aggregators, individual inventors, universities, and failed start-ups. A variety of empirical approaches are used to study the relationship between patentee entity type and case progression and disposition. Summary statistics, regression results, and duration/survival analysis are presented. As a result, a detailed picture of the relationship between the type of patentee-plaintiffs, choice of patented technology, and venue and litigation outcomes, including settlement, emerges. We find that there is significant heterogeneity among patent holder entity types. Individual inventors, failed operating companies, patent holding companies, and large patent aggregators each have distinct strategies. They appear to litigate differently from each other and from operating companies.
Read the paper: Heterogeneity Among Patent Owners in Litigation: An Empirical Analysis of Settlement, Case Progression, and Adjudication
