The Establishment And Management Of The Patent Pool Based On Patent Citation Analysis

In the era of knowledge economy,the industrial development increasingly depends on the technological innovation.In some high-tech fields,many patents gather in high-density,overlapping with each other on rights protection scope to format patent thickets.They bring huge burdens for enterprises to promote the new technology and seriously hinder the development of enterprises.Forming a patent pool is a "win-win" solution to crack the patent thicket obstacle and promote the technological development.The dissertation conducts a study on the establishment and management of a patent pool in the field of fuel cell from the perspective of patent citation.It is expected to help enterprises utilize patent resources effectively and enhance the cooperative ability in foreign patent wars.Methods,such as patent data collection,patent citation analysis,mathematical deduction,game theory analysis,case analysis and empirical study are adopted and systematic research is carried out on these problems,such as technological evolution trajectories,essential patents,the simplified model of a patent pool,management strategies of a patent pool,the construction scheme of a patent pool and fair,reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing.The main contents include:(1)On the basis of discussing the evolution of a patent system and its influence on technological innovations,the relationship between a patent citation and a technological evolution is analyzed.Based on the Connectivity Algorithm,a technological evolution trajectory aggregation algorithm based on a patent citation network is proposed,which takes the Search Path Link Count and the Search Path Node Pair as indicators.This algorithm aggregates citation paths with the largest SPLC or SPNP along directions of patent citations to form a series of continuous technological evolutionary trajectories.Taking the patents in the field of fuel cell authorized by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 1873 to 2002 and their citation data as samples,an empirical study is carried out to analyze the technological evolution in the field of fuel cell from 1873 to 2002.Technological evolution trajectories of the fuel cell follow a continuous process as innovations,diffusions and breakthroughs,which reflect the cumulative and gradual nature of the technology.(2)The origin and evolution of technology are traced with the method of technological genetic decomposition based on the Mendel's genetic law.The concept of technological adaptation index is put forward to measure adaptabilities of patents in technological evolutions.Adaptive patents with high technological adaptation index are strictly screened and filtered as candidates of essential patents.It can overcome the defects caused by the current hiring of third-party experts to identify and evaluate the effectiveness and essentials of patents subjectively.The essentials of patents in a patent pool are ensured and the "win-win" development of patentees and a technology field is guaranteed.Through an empirical analysis,essential patents in technological evolutions of the fuel cell are studied.Results show that,adaptive patents with high technological adaptation index are subordinate to technological evolution trajectories of the fuel cell both from the perspectives of patent citations and patent contents.It is consistent with the central idea of essential patent evaluation:technological evolution.And adaptive patents with high technological adaptation index contain some technological elements,which are important means and technical support of functional indexes or performance requirements specified in fuel cell related standards.So these adaptive patents with high technological adaptation index are essential patents that are unavoidable.(3)A motive of a patentee to join a patent pool is set as a starting point.The Game Theory is used based on the patentee rational man hypothesis and the essential patent value equality hypothesis to analyze two core management strategies of a patent pool:the independent licensing strategy and the grant-back strategy.The patent pool simplification model is established by discussing the demand curve of a patent market,the establishment condition of a patent pool and the distribution of additional patents' license income.Implementation conditions of the independent licensing strategy and the grant-back strategy is clarified by mathematical analysis methods,which provides theoretical supports for the development of Chinese patent pools.(4)Several key points about a patent pool are studied,including the essential patent database,a public commitment on fair,reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing,and management institutions.Taking classic patent infringement lawsuits in domestic and foreign as examples,some suggestions about the establishment and management of a patent pool are put forward,aiming at an interests'balance of the patent pool,patentees and technical implementers.These suggestions include:ensure that a patent pool contains and only contains essential patents;In accordance with the principle of essential patents equivalence,the license income of the patent pool shall be distributed according to the number of essential patents held by patentees;the principle of fair,reasonable and non-discrimination shall be applied to the unified external licensing.