Changes

thicket_stance={Neutral},

thicket_stance_extract={The main problem for policy, however, is how to put a brake on the worst effects of strategic patenting without damaging the incentive effects of the patent system, nor the competitiveness of European firms. The latter is a serious problem. All firms might be better off with less patenting, but as long as their competitors are active in strategic patenting, they will be forced to continue to patent excessively in order not to be left defenseless. This could be a particularly thorny problem for European firms that are active in the United States. Nor is strategic patenting without its possible benefits to innovation. Cohen et al (2002b) note that non-cooperative interactions such as patent blocking and portfolio races ‘raise the possibility of socially wasteful expenditures of effort on applying for marginal patents and associated litigation’.},

thicket_def_extract={However, there is no clear distinction between the use of patents to prevent copying and the use of patents to block competitors. The function of blocking is to create a wide space around an innovation where other firms cannot develop a competitive alternative.... One of the worst-case outcomes of the patenting strategies of private firms is the creation of an ‘anti-commons’ in which the necessary knowledge to conduct further research is covered by a large number of patents held by a large number of firms. This has been called a patent thicket, or a "dense web of overlapping intellectual property rights that a company must hack its way through in order to actually commercialize new technology" (Shapiro, in press).Heller and Eisenberg (1998) raise the concern that licensing in some areas, such as biotechnology, could become so complex or expensive that it acts as a drag on the rate and direction of research, thereby slowing down the development of socially beneficial products and processes... Patent thickets that develop through both defensive and offensive patent strategies could increase the transaction costs for arranging licenses. The cost of complex licensing arrangements could raise business costs without any benefits to the firms involved, with costs passed on to consumers.},

tags={IPR Reform, Defensive/Offensive Patenting, Value from Position/Portfolio, IPR Reform, License to Innovate/Research Exemptions. Effects on Academic Research}

thicket_stance={Anti},

thicket_stance_extract={Much has been made about the nanotech patent "land grab," where inventors rush to patent huge swaths of claim space, while the PTO - allegedly with little knowledge of nanotechnology and no dedicated examining group - grants very broad and overlapping claims. 16 Moreover, the interdisciplinary nature of nanotechnology may allow two patents that use different language to claim the same nanotech product. For example, one patent might cover silicon nanocrystals with an average diameter between 1nm and 30nm, while another could cover any nanocrystal that emits light in a spectral range no greater than 60 nm. Such patents could overlap and create mutually blocking rights.17 While there is nothing in the patent law to prohibit new and nonobvious claims from overlapping (i.e., claims in different patents which cover the same product and which are new and not obvious over the prior art),18 the commentators expressed concern that the allowed claims in some patents may be obvious over the prior art. In Kumar,however, the PTO found the prior art and rejected those claims that it considered to be obvious in light of those references.},

thicket_def_extract={For example, a claim in a later patent may cover a new and nonobvious improvement on a basic invention claimed in an earlier patent. In this case, both patents would properly cover the improved product. A large number of patents containing overlapping claims which cover the same product are often referred to as a "patent thicket."},

tags={Industry Commentary, Sequential Innovation},

thicket_stance={Weak Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={A fall out of such broad claims has been patenting of inventions bordering closely on discoveries (unpatentable subject matter), and patents on basic inventions or building block patents. When holders of such broad patents refuse to license their patents or license these on exclusive basis or at prohibitive prices or with restrictive conditions, it leads to the growth of patent thickets impeding downstream research in nanotechnology. The existence of a high number of such patents with broad and sometimes, overlapping claims adds to the problem of thickets and leads to the fragementation of the patent landscape.},

thicket_def_extract={When holders of such broad patents refuse to license their patents or license these on exclusive basis or at prohibitive prices or with restrictive conditions, it leads to the growth of patent thickets impeding downstream research in nanotechnology. The existence of a high number of such patents with broad and sometimes, overlapping claims adds to the problem of thickets and leads to the fragmentation of the patent landscape. Such a scenario has been reported by Harris in the case of nanotubes where a large number of building blocks, broad patents are held by several different entities.},

tags={Private Mechanisms, Compulsory Licensing, Standards, IPR Reform, Research Exemptions},

thicket_stance={Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={Such patent proliferation of broad patents could ultimately result in 'patent thickets' that will require patent litigation to sort out, especially if areas of nanotechnology become financially lucrative. Given such a patent ladnscape for nanotechnology, expensive patent litigation is inevitable, with patent owners commanding some leverage with which to avoid a self-destructive patent war. The end result of all this is too familiar to the business and patent communities: (1) higher costs to consumers if and when products are commercialized; and (2) a drag on the innovation process itself.},

thicket_def_extract={Patent thickets are broadly defined in academic discourse as "a ‘dense web of overlapping intellectual property rights that a company must hack its way through in order to actually commercialize new technology.’" Richard Raysman & Peter Brown, Patent Cross-Licensing in the Computer and Software Industry, 233 N.Y. L. J., Jan. 11, 2005, at 3, 6 (quoting Carl Shapiro, Navigating the Patent Thicket: Cross-Licenses, Patent Pools, and Standard Settings, in 1 INNOVATION POLICY AND THE ECONOMY 119, 120 (Adam Jaffe et al. eds., 2001)). Such patent thickets, a result of multiple blocking patents, naturally discourage and stifle innovation and "[c]laims in such patent thickets have been characterized as ‘often broad, overlapping and conflicting . . . ’"). },

tags={IPR Reform, Creation of New Classification, Balance Beteween Anti-Trust, Firm Strategy, Defensive/Offensive Patenting, Sequential Innovation},

thicket_stance={Assumed Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={Given such a patent landscape, expensive litigation is as inevitable as it was with the biotechnology industry, where extensive patent litigation resulted once the products became commercially successful. In most of the patent battles the larger entity with the deeper pocket s will rule the day even if the brightest stars and innovators are on the other side. ... Ultimately, this situation is all too familiar to the business and patent communities, in that it leads to higher costs to consumers, if and when products are commercialized [5], as well as deter ring the innovation process itself},

tags={Industry Commentary, Private Mechanisms, Pools, Cross-licensing},

filename={Bawa (2005) - Will The Nanomedicine Patent Land Grab Thwart Commercialization.pdf}

thicket_stance={Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={Therefore, if the current dense patent landscape becomes more entangled and the patent thicket problem worsens, it may prove to be the major bottleneck to viable commercialization, negatively impacting the entire nanotechnology revolution. For investors, competing in this high-stakes patent game may prove too costly.},

thicket_def_extract={Patent thickets are broadly defined in academic discourse as "a 'dense web of overlapping intellectual property rights that a company must hack its way through in order to actually commercialize new technology.'"... Such patent thickets, a result of multiple blocking patents, naturally discourage and stifle innovation...},

tags={IPR Reform, Stricter Patenting Requirements, Private Mechanisms, Cross-Licensing, Industry Commentary},

thicket_stance={Weakly Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={To meet the challenges that the governance of the European patent system is facing because of the emergence of patent thickets the increasing number of patent applications and patenting for defensive and strategic reasons, three options were recommended. These were: (i) enhancing the patent awareness within the European Parliament; (ii) establishing a European Parliament Standing Committee on Patents, which should be linked with an External Advisory Body composed by experts, practitioners and stakeholders; and (iii) enhancing patent awareness within the Commission.},

thicket_def_extract={Here, the recent boom in patenting observed by many researchers is largely explained not by a firms’ drive to innovate more than before, but by a need to accumulate large enough “patent thickets”. These patent thickets work as a sort of insurance against possible legal actions from other companies. They are in effect therefore, a kind of defensive manoeuvre.For instance, take the situation where company A fears that its products will infringe one or more patents owned by company B. So, by developing and holding a large enough patent thicket company A makes sure that company B will inevitably infringe one of these thicketed patents. As a result, negotiations will follow in order to avoid court action between them, and likely end up with mutual cross-licensing between companies A and B Defensive and strategic patenting has for instance, in some sectors resulted in patent thickets, the consequences of which are generally undesirable in terms of creating too many, possibly overlapping patents, which can crowd a technological field and make it difficult and costly to navigate through.... making it difficult for new and small inventors to enter the market.},

tags={IPR Reform, Stricter Patenting Requirements, Low Patent Quality, Balance with Anti-trust, Private Mechanisms, Pools, Clearinghouses, Firm Strategy, Defensive/Offensive Patenting},

thicket_stance={Weak Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={In most cases this will deter many smaller startups and research centres from attempting to traverse the patent thicket. Also broad, overlapping and conflicting thickets are likely to lead to lengthy and costly patent battles.},

thicket_def_extract={When multiple organisations each own individual patents that are collectively necessary for a particular technology, their competing intellectual property rights form a "patent thicket"... However, if this does not happen, nanotechnology research is bound to get stifled in an atmosphere of fragmented intellectual property and broad overlapping claims, [FN30] although licencing also carries with it the problem of protracted negotiations, delays, high royalties and other transaction costs. In most cases this will deter many smaller startups and research centres from attempting to traverse the patent thicket. Also broad, overlapping and conflicting thickets are likely to lead to lengthy and costly patent battles... company that finds itself enmeshed in a patent thicket has a number of options. It can either sue anyone it finds that may be potentially infringing its patent or attempt to commercialise its patent and risk being sued in return.},

tags={Private Mechanisms, Pools, Open Source, NPEs, IPR Reform, Balance with Anti-trust},

thicket_stance={Weak Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={A number of observers of patenting, particularly in the biological sciences, have suggested that patenting rules and overlapping claims have generated a "patent thicket" that has impeded innovation and made the R&D process more costly (Rai, 2001; Rai, 1999). Rai (2001) for example, argues that broad patents especially on upstream platform technologies represent a threat to competition and the cumulative process of innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry.},

thicket_def_extract={A number of observers of patenting, particularly in the biological sciences, have suggested that patenting rules and overlapping claims have generated a "patent thicket" that has impeded innovation and made the R&D process more costly (Rai, 2001; Rai, 1999). Rai (2001) for example, argues that broad patents especially on upstream platform technologies represent a threat to competition and the cumulative process of innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry.},

tags={Firm Strategy, Cumulative Innovation, Industry Commentary, Private Mechanisms, Regime Selection},

thicket_stance={Neutral},

thicket_stance_extract={Scholars have used the term “patent thicket” to describe the problem of multiple overlapping rights that can hamper innovation by creating transaction barriers. Most scholars and those reporting from the field agree that large numbers of rights hamper research and innovation, particularly in the biotech field.21 One scholar, however, has challenged the notion.22 John Walsh argues that firms simply work around the problem of multiple rights for example, by moving offshore beyond the reach of the patent rights, inventing around the rights, and using public research tools.23 In particular, Walsh argues that academic researchers routinely ignore rights structures and that patent holders passively acquiesce.},

thicket_def_extract={Finally, any anticompetitive effects of the open source behavior would be outweighed by the procompetitive effects of reducing patent thickets and promoting the creation and dissemination of ideas without a short-term restriction of supply.... Scholars have used the term “patent thicket” to describe the problem of multiple overlapping rights that can hamper innovation by creating transaction barriers. Most scholars and those reporting from the field agree that large numbers of rights hamper research and innovation, particularly in the biotech field.21 One scholar, however, has challenged the notion.22 John Walsh argues that firms simply work around the problem of multiple rights for example, by moving offshore beyond the reach of the patent rights, inventing around the rights, and using public research tools.23 In particular, Walsh argues that academic researchers routinely ignore rights structures and that patent holders passively acquiesce... In areas not plagued by patent thickets, basic research tools may be controlled by one entity or a small group of entities},

tags={Private Mechanisms, Licensing, Open Source, Effects on Academic Research},

thicket_stance={Weakly Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={If patent thickets exist, the concern is that they will substantially impair research and development because the tools of invention cannot flow freely through the research and development community.},

thicket_def_extract={On the patent front, a key debate concerns the existence, or non-existence, of bottlenecks such as patent thickets and the extent to which any patent thickets may be interfering with research. For decades, scholars warned that problems related to the over proliferation of patent rights would interfere with innovation.1 In theory, multiple overlapping patent rights can hamper innovation by creating high transactions costs as researchers try to navigate the tangle of existing rights. These costs can discourage investment in research or distort the paths that researchers take due to the difficulty of identifying and negotiating all of the underlying rights necessary to begin researching. This leads to inefficiencies and underutilization of intellectual resources.},

tags={Private Mchanisms, Open Source, Open Transfer, Open Access},

thicket_stance={Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={But how likely is it that a patent thicket for biological research will develop? According to the NIH working group on research tools, a thicket of research tool patents has already begun to form...The cumulative result of these actions is the initial formation of a patent thicket for research tools. The negative consequence of an extensive research tool patent thicket and its accompanying licensing scheme is the potential chilling effect on innovation.},

thicket_def_extract={Under this metaphor, a patent thicket arises when each block is granted separate yet concurrent exclusivity rights. The so-called thicket is the resulting nexus of concurrent and overlapping IP rights that one must navigate in order to practice any evolutionary form of science.},

tags={Private Mechanisms, IPR Reform, Pools, Balance with Anti-trust},

thicket_stance={Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={In general, a less rigorous examination is cheap to administer but induces uncertainty regarding the patent's validity and thus diminishes the power of patents to prevent imitation. This may have been alleged to give rise to unnecessary license fees, forgone research opportunities, and projects abandoned by competitors who unjustly fear infringement litigation.},

thicket_def_extract={The patent owner may do this by creating a thicket of pantents, so other parties are swamped with so much complex technical documentation that they cannot separate the chaff from the wheat. Developing patent thickets is relatively easy to do in this regime since the patent examination process is cursory.},

tags={IPR Reform, Stricter Patenting Requirements, Review of Patent Validity},

thicket_stance={Assumed Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={In the field of economics, patent pools are analyzed by Shapiro (2000). He considers the role of patent pools in “patent thicket,” which means that there are so many patents issued that a single new patent will likely infringe on some other patents. This situation discourages and retards research, development and commercialization.},

thicket_def_extract={In the field of economics, patent pools are analyzed by Shapiro (2000). He considers the role of patent pools in “patent thicket,” which means that there are so many patents issued that a single new patent will likely infringe on some other patents. This situation discourages and retards research, development and commercialization.},

tags={Private Mechanisms, Pools, Substitutes, Licensing},

thicket_stance={Weak Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={Basic investigations conducted at universities and academic medical centers, usually publicly funded, often pro- duce key insights about the mecha- nisms underlying physiological function and disease states. Private corpora- tions can then commercialize these insights by designing and marketing new therapeutics or other medical tech- nologies based on them. In this chain of development, allowing patenting of each incremental innovation could risk generating a dense thicket of overlap- ping intellectual rights and thus hinder research efforts.},

thicket_def_extract={Basic investigations conducted at universities and academic medical centers, usually publicly funded, often pro- duce key insights about the mecha- nisms underlying physiological function and disease states. Private corpora- tions can then commercialize these insights by designing and marketing new therapeutics or other medical tech- nologies based on them. In this chain of development, allowing patenting of each incremental innovation could risk generating a dense thicket of overlap- ping intellectual rights and thus hinder research efforts.},

tags={Industry Commentary, Effects on Academic Research, IPR Reform, Private Mechanisms, Pools,},

thicket_stance={Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={The dispersion of overlapping patents across too many firms can also create an anticommons or thicket problem, making effective use of the technology difficult, if not impossible},

thicket_def_extract={While universities have no direct incentive to restrict competition, their interests may or may not align with the optimal implementation of building-block nanotechnology inventions. The result is a nascent market in which a patent thicket is in theory a serious risk... In a surprising range of fields of invention over the past century in what we might think of as "enabling" technologies24 - computer hardware, software, the Internet, even biotechnology - the basic building blocks of the field were either unpatented, through mistake or because they were created by government or university scientists with no interest in patents, or the patents presented no obstacle because the government compelled licensing of the patents, or they were ultimately invalidated. In still other fields, including the laser, the integrated circuit, and polymer chemistry, basic building-block patents did issue, but they were delayed so long in interference proceedings that the industry developed in the absence of enforceable patents... These facts in combination mean that patents will cast a larger shadow over nanotech than they have over any other modern science at a comparable stage of development. Indeed, not since the birth of the airplane a hundred years ago have we seen similar efforts by a range of different inventors to patent basic concepts in advance of a developed market for end products.76 Some fear that ownership of nanotechnology patents is too fragmented, risking the development of a patent "thicket."77 Miller offers several examples of nanoscale technologies that have overlapping patents covering the same basic invention, including the carbon nanotube and semiconducting nanocrystals.},

tags={Effects on Academic Research, Private Mechanisms, Licensing, Compulsory Licensing, IPR Reform, NPEs},

thicket_stance={Assumed Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={When these technologies are protected by intellectual property rights owned by many firms, patent thickets exist, which researchers have argued may hinder the development of cumulative innovations. Specifically, patent thickets may lead to excessive royalty burdens for potential licensees, which is called ‘‘royalty stacking,’’ and if such costs are passed on to consumers, prices of products based on cumulative technologies will be driven up, dubbed as ‘‘double marginalization.’’},

thicket_def_extract={Related, and often overlapping, patents owned by many entities are often described as ‘‘patent thickets’’ and researchers have argued that patent thickets can be detrimental to innovation, especially in information industries such as software (see, among others, Heller and Eisenberg, 1998; Lessig, 2001; Shapiro, 2001; Bessen and Maskin, 2009).},

tags={Private Mechanisms, Pools, Royalties, Licensing, Cumulative Innovation},

thicket_stance={Assumed Anti},

thicket_stance_extract={With the power of the intellectual regime, internal sequential innovations offer a larger thicket of protection that can define the underlying technologies in a set of overlapping patents},

thicket_def_extract={With the power of the intellectual regime, internal sequential innovations offer a larger thicket of protection that can define the underlying technologies in a set of overlapping patents. That is, a sequence of patents revolving around the same technological trajectory can define the intellectual property more precisely and protect it with an enlarged degree of coverage. The holder of such patented innovations can thereafter exclude competitors from the collective scope of the claims laid out in all of the sequential patents (Wagner and Parchomovsky, 2005). In contrast, stand-alone innovations are more likely to be invented around and the underlying intellectual property has a higher hazard of being appropriated (Shapiro, 2000).},

tags={Firm Strategy, Value from Position/Portfolio, Defensive/Offensive Patenting, Private Mechanisms, Regime Selection, Sequential Innovation, IPR Reform, Renewals},

thicket_stance={Assumed Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={While many companies will want to use these nanomaterials, the LuxReport states these companies will be forced to license patents from many different sources. Potentially, there will be significant transactional costs for further nanotechnology developments due to these overlapping claims. Moreover, the quality of these nanotechnology patents has been repeatedly called into question," so the navigation of a patent thicket will have to be around these questionable patents.},

thicket_def_extract={The notion of a patent thicket is where an overlapping set of patent rights requires that those seeking to commercialize new technology obtain licenses from multiple patentees... If you get monopoly rights down at the bottom, "you may stifle competition that uses those patents later on and so the breadth and utilization of patent rights can be used not only to stifle competition, but also have adverse effects in the long run on innovation."... indicating that many patents have been filed relating to nanomaterials with their claims overlapping... Moreover, the quality of these nanotechnology patents has been repeatedly called into question," so the navigation of a patent thicket will have to be around these questionable patents.},

tags={IPR Reform},

tags={IPR Reform, Review of Patent Validity},

filename={Rai (2003) - Engaging Facts And Policy.pdf}

}

tags={Private Mechanisms, Licensing, Royalties},

filename={Rey Salant (2012) - Abuse Of Dominance And Licensing Of Intellectual Property.pdf}

}

thicket_stance={Weak Pro},

thicket_stance_extract={Although industry analysts assert that nanotech is in its infancy, patent thickets on fundamental nano-scale materials, tools and processes are already creating thorny barriers for would-be innovators.},

thicket_def_extract={Will overly broad patents or 'patent thickets' on emerging nano-scale materials, processes and devices prevent researchers in the global South from participating in the nanotech revolution?},

tags={TRIPS, Industry Commentary},