U.S. study estimated damage caused by patent trolls to many billions

U.S. study estimated damage caused by patent trolls to many billions

In the past twenty years, patent licensing companies that manufacture
products have not pressed with their injury claims the market value of
companies by over 500 billion U.S. dollars. This is the result of a
recently published study Boston University on the economic and social
costs of "patent trolls" that the legal scholar James Bessen together
with his colleague Michael Meurer and Jennifer Ford has done. To
determine the values ​​of damage, the researchers resorted back to the
database containing 1630 cases of patent litigation organization
Freedom, are implicated in the pure licensing companies. These were
directed against a total of 4114 other companies.

To calculate the economic impact of this litigation, which related to 62
percent on software patents, the researchers relied less on direct
litigation costs and any damages awarded plaintiffs sums. Rather, they
examined the development of the stock values ​​of companies sued. On
average, victims lost consequently 1990-2010 about 20 million U.S.
dollars of its market valuation. The heaviest single loss amounted to
122 million U.S. dollars. The problem has been exacerbated by the
examination considerably in recent years. Thus the average loss on the
stock exchanges in the past four years had risen to 83 billion U.S. dollars.

The evaluation study of the losses amount to more than a quarter of the
expenditure on research and development in the USA in the parallel
period. Private capital destruction are also not been matched by gains
for society. BE AUTHORIZED to neither the defendant nor associated with
plaintiffs or other inventors have increased incentives for innovation.
In general, the actions were often against several major companies have
been addressed, what would refer to weaknesses in the patent system.
This also lies with the fact that intellectual property rights to
computer programs and business methods are difficult to isolate in their
claims. Bessen in June had already a stir with an analysis provided in
the professional world, which make software patents more trouble than
benefit the industry.