Research & Webinars
Here we provide a number of reports and research summaries related to SMEs and innovation. You will find additional materials in our main research section.
Papers, briefs and publications
Development of innovative new standards jeopardised by IEEE patent policy
by Keith Mallinson – September 2017
This paper assesses the practical impact of changes made by the IEEE to its patent policy in March 2015. According to the IEEE, these changes were aimed at protecting implementers from potential ‘patent holdup’. The paper makes an empirical assessment of the most recent available data and demonstrates that a large proportion of technology contributors to IEEE standardisation efforts are unwilling to provide 'positive' Letters of Assurance and are not being willing to grant access to patented technology under the terms of the IEEE's new patent policy. As a result, delays in adopting or implementing IEEE standards and litigation are foreseen, unless clarity and certainty around licensing terms are restored.
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Categories: Patent System and Patent Quality, Standardisation
Patent Trespass and the Royalty Gap: Exploring the Nature and Impact of “Patent Holdout”
by Bowman Heiden and Nicolas Petit – August 2017
This paper reviews the meaning of holdout in mainstream economics. This inquiry leads to an unexpected discovery: holdout is a term of art that invariably defines the conduct of a property owner, not the conduct of technology implementers. On this basis, a discussion is opened on the possible policy impact that the choice of a concept like “holdup” had on policy makers, as opposed to “holdout”. The study is based in part on a cross-sectional investigation. Throughout 2016 and 2017, the authors conducted qualitative interviews with five industry stakeholders on both sides of the patent spectrum, namely SEP holders and SEP implementers.
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Categories: Patent System and Patent Quality, IP Enforcement, Licensing, IP and Competition Law
Laura MacDonald, MD at ASTP-Proton explains the need for a good ecosystem and talks about industry's increasing interest in university research
With over 800 members, ASTP-Proton in The Hague is the largest association in Europe for professionals involved in technology knowledge transfer.
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4iP Council interviews development economist, Xiaolan Fu
Xiaolan Fu is the Founding Director of the Oxford Technology and Management Centre for Development, Professor of Technology and International Development at Oxford University and Fellow at Green Templeton College. She is also the first mainland Chinese citizen to become a tenured professor at the University of Oxford.
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Patent invalidation and legal certainty – What can patent holders expect?
by Prof Ann
Abstract: Germany is one of Europe’s most important patent centres: as regards patent grants and also as regards patent infringements. This may be why the German patent scene in the last two years has been looking at the success rates of nullity suits filed with the German Federal Patent Court (BPatG) – under two different aspects: In 2014, a first legal article concentrated on the problem of lack of legal certainty for patent holders and on investment risks posed by the seemingly boundless possibilities for challenging patents in nullity proceedings. The article called for these risks to be addressed more carefully, not to the least in view of Art 14 German Grundgesetz (GG), which safeguards the right to property. Another article from the same year, motivated more along the lines of innovation theory, took said success rates as a reason to fundamentally criticise patents under the provocative title “Why most patents are invalid”. This article scrutinised both, individual points within the criticism, as well as allegedly far-reaching conclusions regarding patents at large. According to industry reports, these conclusions have been affecting patent value, and they also may pose a threat to the system as such – unjustly so, as this article will show!
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Categories: Patent System and Patent Quality, IP Enforcement
Philips tops the EPO list for patent filing for second consecutive year
Philips has just been named the world’s largest patent applicant at the European Patent Office (EPO) for the second year running. The company is also in the EPO’s top 10 list for patents granted and ranks first in three leading technology fields: ‘Medical Technology’, ‘Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy’ and ‘measurement’.
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Low-Quality Patents in the Eye of the Beholder: Evidence from Multiple Examiners
by 4ip Council
In this paper, the authors propose a new way of measuring patent quality, based on twin patent applications granted at one office but refused at another office, applied to the five largest patent offices. This method allows to distinguish low-quality patents issued because an office has a low standard from patents issued in violation of an office’s own standard, however high or low (so-called ‘weak patents’ in the scholarly literature). The results suggest that quality in patent systems is higher than previously thought; in particular the percentage of ‘weak’ patents is in single digits for all offices, although the U.S. patent office’s performance is poorer than those of Europe and Japan.
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Categories: Patent System and Patent Quality, IP Enforcement
The different patent landscapes of pharma and tech
4iP Council speaks to Dr Dieter Tzschoppe, Director, Joint Cluster Pure & Applied Organic Chemistry (PAOC), European Patent Office (EPO) about the differences between patenting pharmaceutical innovation and high tech innovation and about the EPO’s work maintaining high assessment quality in the face of rising patent demand.
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High quality of Patents in Europe - infographic
by 4iP Council
4iP Council has consolidated available data on patents in Germany in 2015 to provide a fresh picture on invalidity rates. This work takes the shape of an infographic and follows the recent publication of numerous papers by eminent authors radically overturning an assumption that patent invalidity rates in Europe are high. In 2015, just 1 in 17,500 (0.006%) of all patents in force in Germany were declared invalid by a court. Research findings show similar results for patents in other jurisdictions.
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Categories: Patent System and Patent Quality, IP Enforcement, Infographics
How to estimate the value of your patenting: PSA Peugeot Citröen’s experience.
4iP Council speaks to Pierre Gendraud, General Manager of Licensing and Intellectual Property at PSA Peugeot Citröen and Expert in Intellectual Property at the Paris Court of Appeal.