Patent privateering, litigation, and R&D incentives

Jorge Lemus, Emil Temnyalov

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We model “patent privateering”—whereby producing firms sell patents to Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs), which then license them under the threat of litigation—in a bargaining game. PAEs can negotiate higher licensing fees than producing firms because they cannot be countersued for infringement. Privateering produces two countervailing effects: it increases the offensive value of patents, whereas it decreases their defensive value and lowers the aggregate surplus of producing firms. Embedding the bargaining game into a Research and Development (R&D) contest for multiple complementary technologies, we find that privateering may increase R&D investments, even as it induces more litigation threats and reduces industry profits.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1004-1026
Number of pages23
JournalRAND Journal of Economics
Volume48
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1 2017

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Economics and Econometrics

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