Follow the Money: Is the U.S. patent system is fostering investment and risk taking?

The accused infringer perspective is that this state of affairs is good, that the “sky is not falling” (to use Mark Lemley’s often repeated conference statements), and that inventors, universities, and small to medium size enterprises are being protected from harassment by unscrupulous “patent trolls.” According to this narrative, innovation is being fostered and supported in the U.S. by the current U.S. patent environment.
There are many in this class of innovators who vehemently disagree with this narrative. They argue that patent enforcement has become far too unpredictable, time consuming, and expensive. Some calculate that it takes 5 to 8 years and a minimum predicted recovery of $40 million USD to justify patent enforcement in the U.S. today. They point to certain celebrated cases which involved some of the largest enterprises failing to achieve enforcement goals despite many years of litigation with the most experienced, renowned, and expensive patent litigators pursuing the enforcement.

Rob Sterne

IPWatchdog.org

April 5, 2018

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