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Full-Text Articles in Law
University Software Ownership And Litigation: A First Examination, Arti K. Rai, John R. Allison, Bhaven N. Sampat, Colin Crossman
University Software Ownership And Litigation: A First Examination, Arti K. Rai, John R. Allison, Bhaven N. Sampat, Colin Crossman
Faculty Scholarship
Software patents and university-owned patents represent two of the most controversial intellectual property developments of the last twenty-five years. Despite this reality, and concerns that universities act as "patent trolls" when they assert software patents in litigation against successful commercializers, no scholar has systematically examined the ownership and litigation of university software patents. In this Article, we present the first such examination. Our empirical research reveals that software patents represent a significant and growing proportion of university patent holdings. Additionally, the most important determinant of the number of software patents a university owns is not its research and development ("R&D") …