Untangling the Economics of Patent Thickets

Academic Paper
Title	Patent Thicket Literature Review
Author	Ed Egan, David Teece
RAs	Lauren Bass
Status	Working paper
© edegan.com, 2016

The Paper

Latest version is:

\coauthoredprojects\Egan and Teece\McN-PatentThicket-Egan-092215.pdf

This file is posted at http://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/untangling-patent-thicket-literature

Measures

Types

1. Theory: Economic theory papers are largely concerned with the DHCI problem. (p.5)
2. Empirical: Papers that drift towards first including overlapping patents along with DHCI, and then begin abandoning the usage of DCHI. (p.5)
3. Discussion: It seems that economists favor DHCI and overlaps, cite Shapiro (2001) and do more theoretical work; whereas legal scholars favor overlaps, cite Heller and Eisenberg (1998) and provide discussion. (p.30)

Industries

1. Basic Science: Basic research, which includes the commercialization of academic research, biotechnology, genetics, nanotechnology, and pharmaceuticals. (p.28)
2. Complex Science: Complex product industries, which includes information and communications technology (aside from software and the internet but specifically including semiconductors), manufacturing, and sewing machines (which in the period of analysis of papers discussing it was a complex cutting-edge product). (p.28)
3. Software / Bus. Method: An aggregate of firms focused on software, business methods, and the internet. (p.28)

Topics

1. Effects on Academia: Overlapping patents are curiously related to basic science and the effects of patenting on academic research, both of which depend upon cumulative innovation. (p.30)
2. Private Mechanism: Private arrangement papers discuss cross-licensing, patent pools, patent clearinghouses, patent collectives, FRAND licensing agreements, patent intermediaries (including NPEs), shared platforms, technology standards, and Standard Setting Organizations (SSOs). (p.27)
3. Industry Commentary: There was also a distinct set of publications that engaged in industry commentary; commentary on the nanotechnology and genetics industries were particularly common. (p.27-28)
4. IPR Reform: IPR reform papers suggest reforms to the nature of intellectual property rights, examine processes for granting patents at the patent office, and advocate approaches to patent-related transactions for anti-trust authorities. (p.27)
5. Firm Strategy: Firm strategy papers provide strategic advice to firms regarding their intellectual property – they discuss the strategic implications of blocking patents, pre-emptive patenting, secrecy, ever-greening, avoiding willful infringement, engaging in Mexican standoffs, and other defensive or offensive patenting behaviors, as well the consequences of doings so on collaboration, industry structure (including entry), and the value of firms. (p.27)
6. Patent Thickets: We suggest that one reason why papers implement definitions that are consistent with more than one economic issue is that many of the original definitions of patent thickets were made by analogy. Analogies face the risk of multiple possible interpretations. Shapiro (2001) is frequently quoted in the literature saying that patent thickets are “a dense web of overlapping intellectual property rights that a company must hack its way through in order to actually commercialize new technology". Shapiro’s analogy is compatible with all four of the most commonly discussed economic issues referred to as patent thickets. (p.3-4)

Publication Type

1. Econ
2. Law
3. Science
4. Policy Report

1. Number of Authors
2. Repeat Authors

Test Run

Example BibTeX:

@article{BibTeXKeyGoesHere,
  title={},
  author={},
  journal={},
  year={},
  abstract={},
  discipline={},
  research_type={},
  industry={},
  thicket_stance={},
  thicket_stance_extract={},
  thicket_def={},
  thicket_def_extract={},  
  tags={},
  filename={}
}

Files

Pick 5 files at random from:

Dropbox\coauthoredprojects\Egan and Teece\CandidatePapers

List them here:

• Cockburn MacGarvie (2006) - Entry And Patenting In The Software Industry.pdf
• Murray Stern (2007) - Do formal intellectual property rights hinder the free flow of scientific knowledge?: An empirical test of the anti-commons hypothesis
• ...
• ...
• ...

Do the following:

• Create a new text file in the dropbox. Note where the file is saved!
• Find each paper on Google Scholar and put the BibTeX entry into the text file
• Add the fields from the sample entry above and file them out as follows:
  • Disciple: publication type
  • Research_type: 'Types' (see above)
  • Industry: industries (see above)
  • thicket_def_extract: The text from the paper that you will use to decide the thicket definition
  • thicket_def: one or more of DHCI, Saturated, Overlapping, Gaming, etc.
  • tags: hash tags for modern terms and topic key words, e.g., #Probabilistic, #PatentPool, etc.
  • Filename: Only download the file if we don't have it in Candidate Papers. Put the file name in this tag.

Maybe Important Files

• PTLRCore.bib - Might contain core BibTeX entries

• PTLRDefinitions.pdf - useful to contrast conflicting definitions

• PTLRBibliography.bib - Long list of citations

• PTLR-HoldupQuotes.txt - List of complete quotes with citations

• PTLR-PolicyRpts.txt - Short list of policy reports ranging from 2002 - 2013

• PTLRUp.bib - Another bibliography, additions or subtractions unknown

• Files in C:\Users\Ed\Dropbox\coauthoredprojects\Egan and Teece\ThicketWiki
  • Particularly: CoreWithNewCoreForSorting-rev.txt

.PL files

• BibTucker.pl - location PTLRv2 & 3 folders

• PTLRBibTeXReprocessing.pl - location PTLRv2 & 3 folders

• temp.pl - location PTLRv2 folder

• BibTuckerV20.pl - PTLRv3 folder

• PLTROldTables.txt