• Medientyp: E-Book; Bericht
  • Titel: Patents, freedom to operate, and follow-on innovation: Evidence from post-grant opposition
  • Beteiligte: Gäßler, Fabian [VerfasserIn]; Harhoff, Dietmar [VerfasserIn]; Sorg, Stefan [VerfasserIn]; von Graevenitz, Georg [VerfasserIn]
  • Erschienen: München und Berlin: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München und Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Collaborative Research Center Transregio 190 - Rationality and Competition, 2024
  • Sprache: Englisch
  • Schlagwörter: O34 ; patents ; O33 ; opposition ; O31 ; licensing ; O32 ; freedom to operate ; follow-on innovation
  • Entstehung:
  • Anmerkungen: Diese Datenquelle enthält auch Bestandsnachweise, die nicht zu einem Volltext führen.
  • Beschreibung: We study the blocking effect of patents on follow-on innovation by others. We posit that follow-on innovation requires freedom to operate (FTO), which firms typically obtain through a license from the patentee holding the original innovation. Where licensing fails, follow-on innovation is blocked unless firms gain FTO through patent invalidation. Using large-scale data from post-grant oppositions at the European Patent Office, we find that patent invalidation increases follow-on innovation, measured in citations, by 16% on average. This effect exhibits a U-shape in the value of the original innovation. For patents on low-value original innovations, invalidation predominantly increases low-value followon innovation outside the patentee's product market. Here, transaction costs likely exceed the joint surplus of licensing, causing licensing failure. In contrast, for patents on high-value original innovations, invalidation mainly increases high-value follow-on innovation in the patentee's product market. We attribute this latter result to rent dissipation, which renders patentees unwilling to license out valuable technologies to (potential) competitors.
  • Zugangsstatus: Freier Zugang