This paper reports the findings of an empirical study of patent suits involving non-practicing entities (NPEs) in the U.K. between 2000 and 2010. Overall, we find that NPEs are responsible for 11% of all patent suits filed in the U.K. during this period. Though this is a small percentage by U.S....

Citing empirical evidence that non-practicing entities assert relatively old patents that cover inventions in relatively fast-paced industries, this essay argues that the PTO should increase the number and magnitude of patent renewal ("maintenance") fees in order to hasten the expiration of...

We study five years of data on patents listed and sold in the quasi-public “brokered” market. Our data covers almost 39,000 assets, an estimated 80 percent of all patents and applications offered for sale by patent brokers between 2012 and 2016. We provide statistics on the size and...

Studies of the costs and benefits of university patent ownership have, to date, focused on life sciences technology. Increasingly, however, many of the most lucrative university-owned patents relate to computing and telecommunications, not genes or pharmaceuticals. In 2007, a University of...

In her Article, The Rise of the End User in Patent Litigation, Professor Bernstein makes the case for legislative and judicial action designed to protect technology users from abusive patent enforcement that exploits their relative lack of resources and technical knowledge. This Essay presents...

This essay criticizes university efforts to patent and monetize the fruits of university research. The piece explains that university tech transfer resembles a government-subsidized game of roulette, in which the vast majority of players lose money but continue to play in hopes of hitting an...

This Essay is based on comments I submitted May 6, 2015 in response to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Request for Comments on Enhancing Patent Quality. It proceeds in two parts. First, I share two general observations about the PTO's current slate of New Quality Proposals: specifically,...

We analyze the extent to which private defensive litigation insurance deters patent assertion by non-practicing entities (NPEs). We study the effect that a patent-specific defensive insurance product, offered by a leading litigation insurer, had on the litigation behavior of insured patents'...

In this chapter, we explore the extent to which universities and other nonprofit research institutes currently participate in the secondary market for patents. We document 220 assignments, involving a total of 544 U.S. patent assets, that appear to represent arms-length patent sales by...

On the heels of a widely reported uptick in egregious patent enforcement, six patent reform bills have been introduced in the last six months. All six bills aim to curb nuisance-value patent litigation, a phenomenon popularly referred to as “patent trolling,” by reducing the cost of...