Research On The Characteristics Of Application And Examination Of American Litigated Patents

Patent litigation is a procedure initiated by the patentee in order to protect their technological achievements from infringement in accordance with the legal provisions of intellectual property rights in various countries.With the increasing economic value of patented technology in the world,patent litigation has evolved from a simple legal issue to a compound product of resources and competitive strategy,and has become a new means of making profits.Based on the data published by the United States patent and trademark office,this paper analyzes the patent litigation cases,types of litigated patents,party litigant and collects the entity status,the number of parent applications,foreign priority,PCT applications,the number of claims,technology width,the number of U.S.patent citations and other explanatory variables in the application stage,as well as the patent examination time,the number of IDS(Information Disclosure Statement)files submitted,the number of interviews,RCE times and other information in the examination stage.Build the patent control group.Then use the case control study,regression analysis and other methods to find the influence of patent characteristics under different stages of patent value added and the relationship between patent litigation and the patent application examination characteristics.The results of the study show that although there are some differences in performance,entity status,the number of parent applications,foreign priority,PCT applications,the number of claims,technology width,the number of U.S.patent citations can significantly affect the probability of patent litigation.In terms of application characteristics,small and micro entities’ patents are easier to get involved in litigation than those large entities’ patents,which is 1.899 times of the litigation probability.The higher the number of parent applications in the United States,the higher the probability of patent litigation;Each additional parent application will increase the possibility of patent litigation by 12%.The larger the technology width of the patent,the greater the probability of patent litigation.The more the number of U.S.patent citations,the greater the probability of patent litigation.The higher the number of patent claims,the higher the probability of patent litigation.Compared patents with PCT applications or foreign priority,the probability of patent litigation for non-PCT applications or non-foreign priority is higher.As for examination characteristics,the more IDS files of patent are submitted,the more likely patent litigation is to occur.Each additional IDS file will increase the possibility of patent litigation by 12.3%.The shorter the examination time,the greater the probability of patent litigation.The fewer interviews,the greater the probability of patent litigation.The less times of filing RCEs,the greater the probability of patent litigation.In contrast,the impact of application characteristics on patent litigation is greater than that of examination characteristics.Entity status,PCT application and foreign priority have the greatest impacts on the possibility of patent litigation.