Missing the Forest for the Trolls
Missing the Forest for the Trolls
复制标题
巨魔错过森林
DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.2269087
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发表时间：
2013
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
A. Melamed
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Mark A. Lemley;A. Melamed
巨魔是专利制度的一个重要特征。它们占了大量的诉讼，现在占该国所有专利主张的大多数，在信息技术（IT）行业中所占的比例甚至更高。他们赢得了比“实践实体”（“PE”）更大的判决和更大的和解--那些实践专利的实体，主要不是从实践专利的其他实体那里收钱。尽管有投诉称专利钓鱼者主张的专利薄弱，而且有证据表明钓鱼者的专利更有可能在法庭上败诉，但他们还是这样做了。尽管如此，我们认为，对专利钓鱼者的关注掩盖了专利体系面临的一系列更复杂的挑战。在本文中，我们提出三点。首先，专利巨魔并不是一个单一的现象。我们看到至少有三种不同的巨魔商业模式正在发展，这些模式对专利制度有不同的影响。第二，实践实体的专利主张会造成与专利巨魔的主张一样多的问题。许多行业的性质掩盖了这些断言的一些成本，但这并不意味着它们是免费的。此外，执业实体越来越多地参与“专利掠夺”，其中产品生产公司具有巨魔的许多属性。换句话说，虽然巨魔利用专利制度的问题，但他们并不是唯一这样做的人。第三，与巨魔相关的许多问题实际上是源于互补专利被分散到太多不同的人手中。这反过来又表明，像智力风险投资这样的组织可能会减少，而不是恶化这些问题（尽管，正如我们将看到的，总体效果是模糊的），而“专利私有者”为了让其他人维护专利而剥离专利可能会使事情变得更糟。出于这个原因，专利改革者和反垄断当局应该少担心专利权的聚合，而多担心这些权利的分解，有时是通过将它们分散给其他人来实现的。理解巨魔和执业实体的专利主张的经济学，使我们能够超越标签和寻找“坏演员”，“而是侧重于专利制度本身引起问题的方面，以及巨魔和执业实体有时参与的具体、令人反感的行为。专利巨魔本身并不是问题所在;它们是专利制度更大问题的症状。治标不治本。在一个非常真实的意义上，评论家们一直在为巨魔错过森林。揭露更大的问题使我们能够考虑专利法的变化，这些变化实际上将解决专利制度的潜在病态及其所造成的滥用行为。
Trolls are a significant feature of the patent system. They account for a large number of suits, now a majority of all patent assertions in the country and an even higher percentage in the information technology (IT) industries. They win both larger judgments and larger settlements than do “practicing entities” (“PEs”) -- those that practice patents and are not principally in the business of collecting money from others that practice them. And they do so despite complaints that trolls assert weak patents and some evidence that troll patents are more likely to lose in court.Nonetheless, we think the focus on patent trolls obscures a more complex set of challenges confronting the patent system. In this paper, we make three points. First, patent trolls are not a unitary phenomenon. We see at least three different troll business models developing, and those models have different effects on the patent system. Second, patent assertions by practicing entities can create just as many problems as assertions by patent trolls. The nature of many industries obscures some of the costs of those assertions, but that does not mean they are cost-free. In addition, practicing entities are increasingly engaging in “patent privateering,” in which product-producing companies take on many of the attributes of trolls. Put differently, while trolls exploit problems with the patent system, they are not the only ones that do so. Third, many of the problems associated with trolls are in fact problems that stem from the disaggregation of complementary patents into too many different hands. That in turn suggests that groups like Intellectual Ventures might be reducing, not worsening, these problems (though, as we will see, the overall effects are ambiguous), while “patent privateers” that spin off patents in order for others to assert them might make things worse. For this reason, patent reformers and antitrust authorities should worry less about aggregation of patent rights and more about disaggregation of those rights, sometimes accomplished by spinning them out to others.Understanding the economics of patent assertions by both trolls and practicing entities allows us to move beyond labels and the search for “bad actors,” focusing instead on aspects of the patent system itself that give rise to the problems and on specific, objectionable conduct in which both trolls and practicing entities sometimes engage. Patent trolls alone are not the problem; they are a symptom of larger problems with the patent system. Treating the symptom will not solve the problems. In a very real sense, critics have been missing the forest for the trolls. Exposing the larger problems allows us to contemplate changes in patent law that will actually tackle the underlying pathologies of the patent system and the abusive conduct they enable.
影响因子：
13.7
作者：
TVERSKY, A;KAHNEMAN, D
通讯作者：
KAHNEMAN, D