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Patent Privateers And Antitrust Fears, Matthew Sipe
Patent Privateers And Antitrust Fears, Matthew Sipe
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
Patent trolls are categorically demonized as threatening American innovation and industry. But whether they are a threat that antitrust law is equipped to deal with is a complex question that depends on the particular type of patent troll and activities they engage in. This Article looks specifically at privateer patent trolls: entities that acquire their patents from operating entities and assert them against other industry members. In the particular context of privateering, antitrust law is almost certainly not the proper legal solution. Privateering does raise significant issues: circumventing litigation constraints, evading licensing obligations, and raising the cost and frequency of …
Rent-Seeking And Inter Partes Review: An Analysis Of Invalidity Assertion Entities In Patent Law, W. Michael Schuster
Rent-Seeking And Inter Partes Review: An Analysis Of Invalidity Assertion Entities In Patent Law, W. Michael Schuster
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
This Essay is the first analysis of a recent entrant on the patent landscape: the Invalidity Assertion Entity (IAE). IAEs engage in rent-seeking by demanding payment from patent holders in exchange for not attempting to invalidate their patents through administrative action before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The response to IAEs has been uniformly negative. Reflexive proposals have been raised in Congress (unsurprisingly) to terminate the IAE business model. In contrast to the common response to IAEs, this Essay discusses how profit-driven IAEs may generate socially beneficial externalities and why legislating to end the IAE business model is imprudent.