Study On The Patent Litigation Strategies For Biotechnology Enterprises

Patent is inseparable from the development of biotechnology industry, moreover, patent also has these functions of the strategic assets and the strategic weapons. Biotechnology attaches importance to the research and development, and patent is the weapon for protecting their outcomes of research and development. Patent litigation has been translated into the competitiveness means of enterprises from the pure law topic; also, it is looked as an essential strategic tool for the operation of biotechnology companies. For a biotechnology company, it is very important to develop some valid patent litigation strategies, and the people at large concern the high expectations and the high litigation costs about the biotechnology patent litigation. With the mature legal system and the predominant litigation environment, and other characteristics, America and Britain, which are as the world leaders in biotechnology, has become the battlefield of world biotechnology patent litigation. So, using some biotechnology companies in the United States and British as examples, the dissertation discusses some patent litigations and related theories: The enterprise patent litigation behaviors under the conditions of the asymmetric litigation costs; The factor analysis about a patentee choosing a settlement under the conditions of the asymmetric stakes; the significance of the establishment of the patent litigation and the R & D alliance, and the patent portfolio in patent litigation.Under the conditions of the asymmetric litigation costs, the entry barriers and the behavior mechanism of exiting the competition are discussed for the potential infringers in the market. These companies, which possess of patent(s), usually are on the monopoly position in some degrees in their market. For the existence of patent infringement, the monopoly rent they may lose is much more than the economic rent which the potential infringer(s) may get after successfully entering the market. Under such circumstances, the litigation cost advantage can be looked as a strategic instrument counteracting the entering of potential infringer(s). And then the entry behaviors are studied about the two sides. In additional, the deterrence mechanism constructed by the patentee using the litigation cost advantage, and the ways of profit, are analyzed.Influence factors of isolating income associated with the litigation patent of settlement were consideration. In this dissertation, asymmetric stakes manifested called Isolating income of patent, based on the common understanding that competitive advantage is generally built on firm-specific assets that cannot be easily contracted for in the market。The dissertation studies the 289 patent cases of the biotechnology companies which have been appealed to the U. S. District Court the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit since 1990. To survey the isolationg income of patent, the following indicators are chosen:self-cited rate, number of family patents, science linkage,technology cycletime, patent lifetime, patent portfolio' size and independency of technology. Parameter estimates from a sample selection Probit model provide support for the hypotheses, and the intergrated influence were discussed too, the result is consistent with our statistical hypothesis.The underlying reasons that biotechnology companies change from the patent litigation to the R & D alliance are provided. Using the theories of the competition evolution and the synergia evolution, the dissertation gives a conclusion: the patent litigation among the biotechnology companies is a competition evolution behavior of company, and the R & D alliance produced by it is a synergia evolution behavior of company. In the biotechnology R & D alliance, the effect of the synergia evolution is: similitude or suplement each other, consistent strategy aim and the pursuit of long benefits. For the development of the bio R & D alliance, the characteristic is the strategy, the prevalent patent cross license, and no patent pool. The object of the alliance is changed from sharing the risk and lowering the cost to the organizing the learning. And three-dimensional network of alliance is formed from the linear alliance chain. Bio R & D alliance is not only a form of organizational structure, but also a very important enterprise competitive strategy.The concept and the assessment methods of the patent portfolio are provided. And the dissertation reveals the main approaches of the biotechnology patent portfolio and its operation mechanism. Based on various definition of stakeholder given by western scholars and Chinese scholars, the dissertation proposes that a"patent value chain"could be structured by a series associated patents. The patent portfolio of a company can be comprehensively assessed. For the overall trend and the internal technical strength in the technology environment, the existing patents are classified and the company patent strategies are studied out according the relative position by BCGM (Boston Consulting Group Matrix). On the basis of above studies, the biotechnology patents portfolio strategies are studied. These strategies can be classified into: The patent net strategy, the patent sharing strategy, the joint development, dark-horse expectancy strategy and deployment strategy, the black horse strategy, and technology following strategy. By analyzing the litigation cases for the well-known American biotechnology company: Amgen and Affymetrix, the dissertation proves that the perfect possession of the patent portfolio is a significant factor for a patentee to obtain the benefits during the patent litigation.