Business Commons^™

Privateers & Paes: Economic Harms To Competition And Innovation, Robert G. Harris

Robert G Harris

This paper addresses the problems of aggressive rent-seeking activities by patent assertion entities (PAEs), especially those involving patent thickets. It analyzes the fundamental differences in the strategic interests of practicing entities and PAEs and explains why those differences affect the conduct of PAEs and increase the opportunities for, and economic harm caused by PAEs’ rent-seeking and patent holdup. It also addresses the anticompetitive harms caused when practicing entities transfer patents to PAEs, especially those that incentivize assertion of the transferred patents against their competitors, i.e. “patent privateering.”