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Patent Amicus Briefs: What The Courts’ Friends Can Teach Us About The Patent System, Colleen Chien
Patent Amicus Briefs: What The Courts’ Friends Can Teach Us About The Patent System, Colleen Chien
Faculty Publications
Over the last two decades, more than a thousand amici, representing hundreds of organizations, companies, and individuals, have signed onto amicus briefs in over a hundred patent cases, many of them landmark decisions. This paper turns the spotlight on these “behind-the-scenes” actors in the patent system, combining theoretical insights with an empirical study of amicus briefs filed in patent cases over the last 20 years in an examination of patent interest groups, the positions they have advocated, and the effectiveness of their advocacy. Amicus filers appear to have been instrumental in shaping the courts’ agenda; the Supreme Court was seven …
Predicting Patent Litigation, Colleen Chien
Predicting Patent Litigation, Colleen Chien
Faculty Publications
Patent lawsuits are disruptive, unpredictable, and costly. The inability to anticipate patent litigation makes it practically uninsurable, exposes companies to late-stage suits, and drives companies to rapidly accumulate patents in order to ward off litigation. This article confronts this systemic problem, by examining the factors that lead a particular patent to be litigated – only around 1% of patents ever is. It relates the eventual litigation of a patent to earlier events in the patent’s life, including changes in ownership of the patent (assignments, transfers, and changes in owner size), continued investment in the patent (reexamination, maintenance fees), securitization of …