Assignment 12- Part 1

Efrat Kasznik summary and discussion

This post will summarize and discuss part of Efrat Kasznik’s talk in class. She specifically talks about the patent market right now and the specific metrics used to measure the movements in patent patterns. She then uses these metrics to extrapolate the bigger picture movements in patents and what that means for the IT industry.

The first of the metrics she looks at is the rise of patent trolls as shown through increased law suits by NPEs. This is a very important metric to look at because the negative effects of patent trolls on the industry are directly proportional to the amount of activity patent trolls are creating. While patent trolls do most of their damage outside of litigation, and rather through negotiations that never reach the courts, the amount of litigation can be assumed to have a strong correlation with all patent troll activity including intimidation and negotiation before formal litigation.

The next metric she focused on was the traffic of patents in the marketplace. Historically patents were granted to inventors who produced or licensed a product until the expiration of the patent. This can be juxtaposed with the current system which sees the constant buying and selling on tons of patents. This also points to the fact that patents are used much more as bargaining chips in strategic business/legal games rather than classic invention followed by production.

Her final metric is the number of patent applications and patents issued. This shows the insane almost exponential increase in patent applications that the USPTO has received. The USPTO has not increased its employees by the same magnitude as the number of patent applications have increased. This points to the fact that the employees at the USPTO are now overworked and can not necessarily dedicate the same time and effort to each patent as they did before which has a host of negative externalities in itself.

Overall she uses this quantitative approach to look at the bigger picture and finally to explain some of the trends that can be seen with regard to patents.