Abstract
Patent litigation refers to patent infringement lawsuits or revocation proceedings. Infringement is the act of making, using, selling, or offering to sell a patented invention without the permission of the patent owner. Revocation proceedings refer to the claim on patent validity before civil courts that may be carried out by firms interested not to be sued for infringing “wrongly” granted patents. Presently, national courts of the member states of the European Patent Convention are competent to pass judgment on the infringement and validity of European patents, with inevitable consequences in terms of duplication and inconsistencies. In December 2012, the European Parliament approved the EU unitary patent package, whose ratification by the individual member states will give rise to a European patent with unitary effects in all jurisdictions involved and to the creation of a Unified Patent Court (UPC) with exclusive jurisdiction to hear infringement and invalidity actions. The result will be a patent protection for all participating member states based on a single application and validation.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Atkinson S, Marco A, Turner J (2009) The economics of a centralized judiciary: uniformity, forum shopping and the federal circuit. J Law Econ 52:411–443
Choi J (1998) Patent litigation as an information-transmission mechanism. Am Econ Rev 88:1249–1263
Cotter T (2011) A research agenda for the comparative law and economics of patent remedies. Minnesota legal studies research paper no. 11-10
Cremers K, ErnickeM, Gaessler F, Harhoff D, Helmers C, McDonagh L, Schliesser P, Van Zeebroeck N (2013) Patent litigation in Europe. ZEW discussion paper 13-072 http://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/83473/1/769014895.pdf
Directive 2004/48/EC. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:195:0016:0025:en:PDF
EPO (2013a) Patent litigation in Europe, 3rd edn. European Patent Academy, Munich. http://www.eplit.eu/files/downloads/patent_litigation_in_europe_2013_en.pdf
EPO (2013b) Agreement on a unified patent court. http://documents.epo.org/projects/babylon/eponet.nsf/0/A1080B83447CB9DDC1257B36005AAAB8/$File/upc_agreement_en.pdf
Frank R, DeFranco D (2000) Patent infringement damages: a brief summary. Fed Cir B J 10:281–291
Graham S, Van Zeebroeck N (2014) Comparing patent litigation across Europe: a first look. Stan Tec L Rev 17:655–708
Harhoff D (2009) Economic cost-benefit analysis of a unified and integrated European patent litigation system. Tender No. MARKT/2008/06/D. http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/docs/patent/studies/litigation_system_en.pdf
Henry M, Turner J (2006) The court of appeals for the federal circuit’s impact on patent litigation. J Legal Stud 35:85–117
Lanjouw J, Schankerman M (2001) Characteristics of patent litigation: a window on competition. RAND J Econ 32:129–151
Lemley M (2010) Where to file your patent case. AIPLA Q J 38:1–35
Lemley M, Shapiro C (2007) Patent holdup and royalty stacking. Tex Law Rev 85:1991–2049
Llobet G (2003) Patent litigation when innovation is cumulative. Int J Ind Organ 21:1135–1157
Love B (2009) The misuse of reasonable royalty damage as a patent infringement deterrent. Mon Weather Rev 74:909–948
Luginbuehl S (2011) European patent law: towards a uniform interpretation. Edward Elgar, Northampton
Priest G, Klein B (1984) The selection of disputes for litigation. J Legal Stud 8:1–56
Reitzig M, Henkel J, Heath C (2007) On sharks, trolls, and their patent prey—unrealistic damage awards and firms’ strategies of “being infringed”. Res Policy 36:134–154
Schankerman M, Scotchmer S (2001) Damages and injunctions in protecting intellectual property. RAND J Econ 32:199–220
Spier K, Spulber D (1993) Suit settlement and trial: a theoretical analysis under alternative methods for the allocation of legal costs. J Legal Stud 11:55–81
WIPO (2008) Chapter 2: Fields of intellectual property protection. In: Intellectual property handbook: policy, law and use. http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/about-ip/en/iprm/pdf/ch2.pdf
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Ottoz, E. (2015). Patent Litigation. In: Backhaus, J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_585-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_585-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7883-6
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences
Publish with us
Chapter history
-
Latest
Patent Litigation- Published:
- 05 July 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_585-2
-
Original
Patent Litigation- Published:
- 29 January 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_585-1