Study On Subject Types And Patent Features Of Patent Litigations

With prominence of technical value and economic value of patents in recent years,patent litigations have evolved from traditional protective methods into new competitive tools.Patent litigations in the worldwide have increased rapidly,which becomes a new problem in technology management and patent operation.It is the critical period for Chinese enterprises to accelerate technological catch-up and achieve independent innovation.Chinese enterprises have frequently become targets for patent litigations especially in overseas markets.Once companies fall into patent litigations and suffer high claims,it not only disturbs the normal operation,but also has long-term negative impact on corporate reputation and the research and development of technology.As core elements of patent litigations,litigation subjects and patents involved are employed as breakthrough to carry out targeted study,so as to provide urgent management support for Chinese enterprises troubled with patent litigations.The literature review is written on the study of patent traps and patent thickets,patent litigations and patent early-warning.On the basis of it,the hypothesis is put forward based on existing problems and three issues are carried out as follows.Firstly,social network analysis is employed to establish the litigation network of litigation subjects,and hierarchical cluster analysis is used to analyze the key features of litigation subjects quantitatively,and the types of litigation subjects are classified.Secondly,as the first published patent documentation,patent applications are used as a breakthrough.By analyzing feature fields in patent applications,a regression model of patent application features and patent litigations is established to reveal key application features of patents related to litigations.Thirdly,the life cycle of patent approval,maintenance and expiration after application is analyzed,and changing patent dynamic features in the process are extracted,and a regression model of patent dynamic features and patent litigations is established to reveal key dynamic features of patents related to litigations.The research of subject types of patent litigations reveals there is not only complicated litigation relationship between litigation subjects,but also significant differences in the frequency of prosecuting and prosecuted,as well as network location.Litigation subjects are classified into four types accordingly.Besides the traditional industry leading enterprises and catch-up ones,there are two ignored litigation subjects,which are mainly professional organizations specializing in patent operation.They have become important prosecutors,and rarely become prosecuted objects.Due to the business features and small business scale,they have not been paid enough attention.Not only traditional industry competitors but also non-traditional litigation subjects mentioned above should be paid high attention to deal with patent litigations.The research of key application features of patents involved in litigations shows that the number of independent claims,the number of citing patents and the width of technology are positively correlated with the probability of patent litigations,and they are key application features of patents involved in litigations.The regression coefficient of the number of inventors is also positive,but it is not statistically significant.This means patents with the more independent claims,citing patents and width of technology,the more easily leading to patent litigations in the future.According to the key application features closely related to patent litigations,high-risk patents easily leading to litigations can be screened out in advance,so as to conduct patent early-warning by using the first published application information.The research of key dynamic features of patents involved in litigations shows that approval time,cited times and transfer times are positively correlated with the probability of patent litigations,and they are key dynamic features of patents involved in litigations.The regression coefficient of the number of patent family is also positive,but it is not statistically significant.This means patents with high dynamic feature values such as approval time,cited times and transfer times are liable to patent litigations.Key dynamic features of a single patent are dynamically monitored to screen out high-risk patents when conduct patent early-warning for specific patents,and it provides necessary analytical tools for enterprises to coping with potential patent litigation.