Archives For Patent

Is FRAND Litigation a Credible Threat?: A reply to Mark Lemley, Douglas Melamed and Steven Salop

Geoffrey Manne & Dirk Auer —  21 January 2020

Last week, we posted a piece on TOTM, criticizing the amicus brief written by Mark Lemley, Douglas Melamed and Steven Salop in the ongoing Qualcomm litigation. The authors prepared a thoughtful response to our piece, which we published today on TOTM. 

In this post, we highlight the points where we agree with the amici (or at least we think so), as well as those where we differ.

Negotiating in the shadow of FRAND litigation

Let us imagine a hypothetical world, where an OEM must source one chipset from Qualcomm (i.e. this segment of the market is non-contestable) and one chipset from either Qualcomm or its  rivals (i.e. this segment is contestable). For both of these chipsets, the OEM must also reach a license agreement with Qualcomm.

We use the same number as the amici: 

  • The OEM has a reserve price of $20 for each chip/license combination. 
  • Rivals can produce chips at a cost of $11. 
  • The hypothetical FRAND benchmark is $2 per chip. 

With these numbers in mind, the critical question is whether there is a realistic threat of litigation to constrain the royalties commanded by Qualcomm (we believe that Lemley et al. agree with us on this point). The following table shows the prices that a hypothetical OEM would be willing to pay in both of these scenarios:

Blue cells are segments where QC can increase its profits if the threat of litigation is removed.

When the threat of litigation is present, Qualcomm obtains a total of $20 for the combination of non-contestable chips and IP. Qualcomm can use its chipset position to evade FRAND and charges the combined monopoly price of $20. At a chipset cost of $11, it would thus make $9 worth of profits. However, it earns only $13 for contestable chips ($2 in profits). This is because competition brings the price of chips down to $11 and Qualcomm does not have a chipset advantage to earn more than the FRAND rate for its IP.

When the threat of litigation is taken off the table, all chipsets effectively become non-contestable. Qualcomm still earns $20 for its previously non-contestable chips. But it can now raise its IP rate above the FRAND benchmark in the previously contestable segment (for example, by charging $10 for the IP). This squeezes its chipset competitors.

If our understanding of the amici’s response is correct, they argue that the combination of Qualcomm’s strong chipset position and its “No License, No Chips” policy (“NLNC”) effectively nullifies the threat of litigation:

Qualcomm is able to charge more than $2 for the license only because it uses the power of its chip monopoly to coerce the OEMs to give up the option of negotiating in light of the otherwise applicable constraints on the royalties it can charge. 

According to the amici, the market thus moves from a state of imperfect competition (where OEMs would pay $33 for two chips and QC’s license) to a world of monopoly (where they pay the full $40).

We beg to differ. 

Our points of disagreement

From an economic standpoint, the critical question is the extent to which Qualcomm’s chipset position and its NLNC policy deter OEMs from obtaining closer-to-FRAND rates.

While the case record is mixed and contains some ambiguities, we think it strongly suggests that Qualcomm’s chipset position and its NLNC policy do not preclude OEMs from using litigation to obtain rates that are close to the FRAND benchmark. There is thus no reason to believe that it can exclude its chipset rivals.

We believe the following facts support our assertion:

  • OEMs have pursued various litigation strategies in order to obtain lower rates on Qualcomm’s IP. As we mentioned in our previous post, this was notably the case for Apple, Samsung and LG. All three companies ultimately reached settlements with Qualcomm (and these settlements were concluded in the shadow of litigation proceedings — indeed, in Apple’s case, on the second day of trial). If anything, this suggests that court proceedings are an integral part of negotiations between Qualcomm and its OEMs.
  • For the most part, Qualcomm’s threats to cut off chip supplies were just that: threats. In any negotiation, parties will try to convince their counterpart that they have a strong outside option. Qualcomm may have done so by posturing that it would not sell chips to OEMs before they concluded a license agreement. 

    However, it seems that only once did Qualcomm apparently follow through with its threats to withhold chips (against Sony). And even then, the supply cutoff lasted only seven days.

    And while many OEMs did take Qualcomm to court in order to obtain more favorable license terms, this never resulted in Qualcomm cutting off their chipset supplies. Other OEMs thus had no reason to believe that litigation would entail disruptions to their chipset supplies.
  • OEMs also wield powerful threats. These include patent holdout, litigation, vertical integration, and purchasing chips from Qualcomm’s rivals. And of course they have aggressively pursued the bringing of this and other litigation around the world by antitrust authorities — even quite possibly manipulating the record to bolster their cases. Here’s how one observer sums up Apple’s activity in this regard:

    “Although we really only managed to get a small glimpse of Qualcomm’s evidence demonstrating the extent of Apple’s coordinated strategy to manipulate the FRAND license rate, that glimpse was particularly enlightening. It demonstrated a decade-long coordinated effort within Apple to systematically engage in what can only fairly be described as manipulation (if not creation of evidence) and classic holdout.

    Qualcomm showed during opening arguments that, dating back to at least 2009, Apple had been laying the foundation for challenging its longstanding relationship with Qualcomm.” (Emphasis added)

    Moreover, the holdout and litigation paths have been strengthened by the eBay case, which significantly reduced the financial risks involved in pursuing a holdout and/or litigation strategy. Given all of this, it is far from obvious that it is Qualcomm who enjoys the stronger bargaining position here.
  • Qualcomm’s chipsets might no longer be “must-buys” in the future. Rivals have gained increasing traction over the past couple of years. And with 5G just around the corner, this momentum could conceivably accelerate. Whether or not one believes that this will ultimately be the case, the trend surely places additional constraints on Qualcomm’s conduct. Aggressive behavior today may spur disgruntled rivals to enter the chipset market or switch suppliers tomorrow.

To summarize, as we understand their response, the delta between supracompetitive and competitive prices is entirely a function of Qualcomm’s ability to charge supra-FRAND prices for its licenses. On this we agree. But, unlike Lemley et al., we do not agree that Qualcomm is in a position to evade its FRAND pledges by using its strong position in the chipset market and its NLNC policy.

Finally, it must be said again: To the extent that that is the problem — the charging of supra-FRAND prices for licenses — the issue is manifestly a contract issue, not an antitrust one. All of the complexity of the case would fall away, and the litigation would be straightforward. But the opponents of Qualcomm’s practices do not really want to ensure that Qualcomm lowers its royalties by this delta; if they did, they would be bringing/supporting FRAND litigation. What the amici and Qualcomm’s contracting partners appear to want is to use antitrust litigation to force Qualcomm to license its technology at even lower rates — to force Qualcomm into a different business model in order to reset the baseline from which FRAND prices are determined (i.e., at the chip level, rather than at the device level). That may be an intelligible business strategy from the perspective of Qualcomm’s competitors, but it certainly isn’t sensible antitrust policy.

In Antitrust & Competition, Apple, Federal Trade Commission, FTC v. Qualcomm: Analyzing the theory of the case, Google, Intellectual Property, Patent, Platforms, Standard Setting, Telecommunications, Truth on the Market, Wireless , , , , , , , , , ,
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The DOJ-FTC IP Guidelines: Suggestions for Promoting Innovation

Kristian Stout —  28 September 2016

This week, the International Center for Law & Economics filed comments  on the proposed revision to the joint U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) – U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust-IP Licensing Guidelines. Overall, the guidelines present a commendable framework for the IP-Antitrust intersection, in particular as they broadly recognize the value of IP and licensing in spurring both innovation and commercialization.

Although our assessment of the proposed guidelines is generally positive,  we do go on to offer some constructive criticism. In particular, we believe, first, that the proposed guidelines should more strongly recognize that a refusal to license does not deserve special scrutiny; and, second, that traditional antitrust analysis is largely inappropriate for the examination of innovation or R&D markets.

On refusals to license,

Many of the product innovation cases that have come before the courts rely upon what amounts to an implicit essential facilities argument. The theories that drive such cases, although not explicitly relying upon the essential facilities doctrine, encourage claims based on variants of arguments about interoperability and access to intellectual property (or products protected by intellectual property). But, the problem with such arguments is that they assume, incorrectly, that there is no opportunity for meaningful competition with a strong incumbent in the face of innovation, or that the absence of competitors in these markets indicates inefficiency … Thanks to the very elements of IP that help them to obtain market dominance, firms in New Economy technology markets are also vulnerable to smaller, more nimble new entrants that can quickly enter and supplant incumbents by leveraging their own technological innovation.

Further, since a right to exclude is a fundamental component of IP rights, a refusal to license IP should continue to be generally considered as outside the scope of antitrust inquiries.

And, with respect to conducting antitrust analysis of R&D or innovation “markets,” we note first that “it is the effects on consumer welfare against which antitrust analysis and remedies are measured” before going on to note that the nature of R&D makes it effects very difficult to measure on consumer welfare. Thus, we recommend that the the agencies continue to focus on actual goods and services markets:

[C]ompetition among research and development departments is not necessarily a reliable driver of innovation … R&D “markets” are inevitably driven by a desire to innovate with no way of knowing exactly what form or route such an effort will take. R&D is an inherently speculative endeavor, and standard antitrust analysis applied to R&D will be inherently flawed because “[a] challenge for any standard applied to innovation is that antitrust analysis is likely to occur after the innovation, but ex post outcomes reveal little about whether the innovation was a good decision ex ante, when the decision was made.”

In Antitrust & Competition, Federal Trade Commission, Intellectual Property, International Center for Law & Economics, Justice Department, Truth on the Market , , ,
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The Latest Front in the Patent Wars: Attacking Innovation in Universities

Kristian Stout —  1 September 2016

It’s not quite so simple to spur innovation. Just ask the EU as it resorts to levying punitive retroactive taxes on productive American companies in order to ostensibly level the playing field (among other things) for struggling European startups. Thus it’s truly confusing when groups go on a wholesale offensive against patent rights — one of the cornerstones of American law that has contributed a great deal toward our unparalleled success as an innovative economy.

Take EFF, for instance. The advocacy organization has recently been peddling sample state legislation it calls the “Reclaim Invention Act,” which it claims is targeted at reining in so-called “patent trolls.” Leaving aside potential ulterior motives (like making it impossible to get software patents at all), I am left wondering what EFF actually hopes to achieve.

“Troll” is a scary sounding word, but what exactly is wrapped up in EFF’s definition? According to EFF’s proposed legislation, a “patent assertion entity” (the polite term for “patent troll”) is any entity that primarily derives its income through the licensing of patents – as opposed to actually producing the invention for public consumption. But this is just wrong. As Zorina Khan has noted, the basic premise upon which patent law was constructed in the U.S. was never predicated upon whether an invention would actually be produced:

The primary concern was access to the new information, and the ability of other inventors to benefit from the discovery either through licensing, inventing around the idea, or at expiration of the patent grant. The emphasis was certainly not on the production of goods; in fact, anyone who had previously commercialized an invention lost the right of exclusion vested in patents. The decision about how or whether the patent should be exploited remained completely within the discretion of the patentee, in the same way that the owner of physical property is allowed to determine its use or nonuse.

Patents are property. As with other forms of property, patent holders are free to transfer them to whomever they wish, and are free to license them as they see fit. The mere act of exercising property rights simply cannot be the basis for punitive treatment by the state. And, like it or not, licensing inventions or selling the property rights to an invention is very often how inventors are compensated for their work. Whether one likes the Patent Act in particular or not is irrelevant; as long as we have patents, these are fundamental economic and legal facts.

Further, the view implicit in EFF’s legislative proposal completely ignores the fact that the people or companies that may excel at inventing things (the province of scientists, for example) may not be so skilled at commercializing things (the province of entrepreneurs). Moreover, inventions can be enormously expensive to commercialize. In such cases, it could very well be the most economically efficient result to allow some third party with the requisite expertise or the means to build it, to purchase and manage the rights to the patent, and to allow them to arrange for production of the invention through licensing agreements. Intermediaries are nothing new in society, and, despite popular epithets about “middlemen,” they actually provide a necessary function with respect to mobilizing capital and enabling production.

Granted, some companies will exhibit actual “troll” behavior, but the question is not whether some actors are bad, but whether the whole system overall optimizes innovation and otherwise contributes to greater social welfare. Licensing patents in itself is a benign practice, so long as the companies that manage the patents are not abusive. And, of course, among the entities that engage in patent licensing, one would assume that universities would be the most unobjectionable of all parties.

Thus, it’s extremely disappointing that EFF would choose to single out universities as aiders and abettors of “trolls” — and in so doing recommend punitive treatment. And what EFF recommends is shockingly draconian. It doesn’t suggest that there should be heightened review in IPR proceedings, or that there should be fee shifting or other case-by-case sanctions doled out for unwise partnership decisions. No, according to the model legislation, universities would be outright cut off from government financial aid or other state funding, and any technology transfers would be void, unless they:

determine whether a patent is the most effective way to bring a new invention to a broad user base before filing for a patent that covers that invention[;] … prioritize technology transfer that develops its inventions and scales their potential user base[;] … endeavor to nurture startups that will create new jobs, products, and services[;] … endeavor to assign and license patents only to entities that require such licenses for active commercialization efforts or further research and development[;] … foster agreements and relationships that include the sharing of know-how and practical experience to maximize the value of the assignment or license of the corresponding patents; and … prioritize the public interest in all patent transactions.

Never mind the fact that recent cases like Alice Corp., Octane Fitness, and Highmark — as well as the new inter partes review process — seem to be putting effective downward pressure on frivolous suits (as well as, potentially, non-frivolous suits, for that matter); apparently EFF thinks that putting the screws to universities is what’s needed to finally overcome the (disputed) problems of excessive patent litigation.

Perhaps reflecting that even EFF itself knows that its model legislation is more of a publicity stunt than a serious proposal, most of what it recommends is either so ill-defined as to be useless (e.g., “prioritize public interest in all patent transactions?” What does that even mean?) or is completely mixed up.

For instance, the entire point of a university technology transfer office is that educational institutions and university researchers are not themselves in a position to adequately commercialize inventions. Questions of how large a user base a given invention can reach, or how best to scale products, grow markets, or create jobs are best left to entrepreneurs and business people. The very reason a technology transfer office would license or sell its patents to a third party is to discover these efficiencies.

And if a university engages in a transfer that, upon closer scrutiny, runs afoul of this rather fuzzy bit of legislation, any such transfers will be deemed void. Which means that universities will either have to expend enormous resources to find willing partners, or will spend millions on lawsuits and contract restitution damages. Enacting these feel-good  mandates into state law is at best useless, and most likely a tool for crusading plaintiff’s attorneys to use to harass universities.

Universities: Don’t you dare commercialize that invention!

As I noted above, it’s really surprising that groups like EFF are going after universities, as their educational mission and general devotion to improving social welfare should make them the darlings of social justice crusaders. However, as public institutions with budgets and tax statuses dependent on political will, universities are both unable to route around organizational challenges (like losing student aid or preferred tax status) and are probably unwilling to engage in wholesale PR defensive warfare for fear of offending a necessary political constituency. Thus, universities are very juicy targets — particularly when they engage in “dirty” commercial activities of any sort, no matter how attenuated.

And lest you think that universities wouldn’t actually be harassed (other than in the abstract by the likes of EFF) over patents, it turns out that it’s happening even now, even without EFF’s proposed law.

For the last five years Princeton University has been locked in a lawsuit with some residents of Princeton, New Jersey who have embarked upon a transparently self-interested play to divert university funds to their own pockets. Their weapon of choice? A challenge to Princeton’s tax-exempt status based on the fact that the school licenses and sells its patented inventions.

The plaintiffs’ core argument in Fields v. Princeton is that the University should be  a taxpaying entity because it occasionally generates patent licensing revenues from a small fraction of the research that its faculty conducts in University buildings.

The Princeton case is problematic for a variety of reasons, one of which deserves special attention because it runs squarely up against a laudable federal law that is intended to promote research, development, and patent commercialization.

In the early 1980s Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act, which made it possible for universities to retain ownership over discoveries made in campus labs. The aim of the law was to encourage essential basic research that had historically been underdeveloped. Previously, the rights to any such federally-funded discoveries automatically became the property of the federal government, which, not surprisingly, put a damper on universities’ incentives to innovate.

When universities collaborate with industry — a major aim of Bayh-Dole — innovation is encouraged, breakthroughs occur, and society as a whole is better off. About a quarter of the top drugs approved since 1981 came from university research, as did many life-changing products we now take for granted, like Google, web browsers, email, cochlear implants and major components of cell phones. Since the passage of the Act, a boom in commercialized patents has yielded billions of dollars of economic activity.

Under the Act innovators are also rewarded: Qualifying institutions like Princeton are required to share royalties with the researchers who make these crucial discoveries. The University has no choice in the matter; to refuse to share the revenues would constitute a violation of the terms of federal research funding. But the Fields suit ignores this reality an,d in much the same way as EFF’s proposed legislation, will force a stark choice upon Princeton University: engage with industry, increase social utility and face lawsuits, or keep your head down and your inventions to yourself.

A Hobson’s Choice

Thus, things like the Fields suit and EFF’s proposed legislation are worse than costly distractions for universities; they are major disincentives to the commercialization of university inventions. This may not be the intended consequence of these actions, but it is an entirely predictable one.

Faced with legislation that punishes them for being insufficiently entrepreneurial and suits that attack them for bothering to commercialize at all, universities will have to make a hobson’s choice: commercialize the small fraction of research that might yield licensing revenues and potentially face massive legal liability, or simply decide to forego commercialization (and much basic research) altogether.

The risk here, obviously, is that research institutions will choose the latter in order to guard against the significant organizational costs that could result from a change in their tax status or a thicket of lawsuits that emerge from voided technology transfers (let alone the risk of losing student aid money).

But this is not what we want as a society. We want the optimal level of invention, innovation, and commercialization. What anti-patent extremists and short-sighted state governments may obtain for us instead, however, is a status quo much like Europe where the legal and regulatory systems perpetually keep innovation on a low simmer.

In Apple, European Union, Google, Intellectual Property, International, Patent, Platforms, Taxes, Truth on the Market , , , , , , ,
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CPIP Conference on Oct. 6-7, 2016: “Intellectual Property and Global Prosperity”

Adam Mossoff —  8 July 2016

Please Join Us For A Conference On Intellectual Property Law

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & GLOBAL PROSPERITY

Keynote Speaker: Dean Kamen

October 6-7, 2016

Antonin Scalia Law School
George Mason University
Arlington, Virginia

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW

**9 Hours CLE**

In Constitutional Law, Copyright, Intellectual Property, Patent, Supreme Court , , , , , , , , , , ,
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The America Invents Act, a First-to-Invent Patent System, and “Obama-Birther” Accusations

Adam Mossoff —  6 July 2016

About a month ago, I was asked by some friends about the shift from the first-to-invent patent system to a first-to-file patent system in the America Invents Act of 2011 (AIA). I was involved briefly in the policy debates in the spring of 2011 leading up to the enactment of the AIA, and so this query prompted me to share a short essay I wrote in May 2011 on this issue. In this essay, I summarized my historical scholarship I had published up to that point in law journals on the legal definition and protection of patents in the Founding Era and in the early American Republic. I concluded that a shift to a first-to-file patent system contradicted both the constitutional text and the early judicial interpretations of the patent statutes that secured patent rights to first inventors.

This legal issue will likely reach the courts one day. A constitutional challenge a couple years ago was rightly dismissed as not being justiciable, but there may yet be an appropriate case in which an inventor is denied a patent given that he or she lost the race to file first in the Patent Office. So, after sharing my essay with my friends, I thought it valuable to post it again on the Internet, because the website on which it was first published (www.noonHR1249.com) slipped into digital oblivion long ago.

I was asked to write this essay in May 2011 by the U.S. Business & Industry Council (USBIC)[1] The USBIC requested my scholarly analysis of the first-to-file provision of the AIA, which was being debated as H.R. 1249 on Capitol Hill at the time, because I had been publishing articles in law journals on the legal definition and protection of patents as property rights in the Founding Era and in the early American Republic (see here and here for two examples). In my essay, I identified the relevant text in the Constitution, which authorizes Congress to secure an exclusive right to “Inventors” in their “Discoveries” (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8). Based on my academic research, I summarized in my essay the historical Supreme Court and lower federal court decisions, which secured patents to inventors according to the same policy justifications used in common-law cases to justify property rights to first possessors of land. Thus, I concluded that the first-to-file provision in the American Invents Act was unconstitutional, based on well-recognized arguments concerning textual analysis of the Constitution and inferences from original public meaning as reflected in the historical judicial record.

There’s more to my essay, though, than just the substantive legal argument. It also provides an insight into the nature of the legal academic debates going back many years, because at the time Professor Mark Lemley of Stanford Law School compared me to an “Obama-birther” and he called this constitutional and legal argument “fringe science.” Given concerns expressed last year in an open letter co-authored by Professor Lemley and others about inappropriate rhetoric used by academics, among other issues (see here for a news report on this letter), it bears noting for the record that this is a concern that goes back many years.

Here’s the basic story: My essay was published by the USBIC in May 2011 and I was invited to speak in congressional staffer briefings and in other venues in Capitol Hill against the AIA on this issue. At this time, I was the only legal academic writing and speaking on Capitol Hill on this issue in the AIA. In late May, the 21st Century Coalition for Patent Reform, which supported enactment of the AIA, distributed on Capitol Hill a response that it had solicited from Professor Lemley. I no longer possess this response statement that was sent out via email by the 21st Century Coalition, but I do have the response I was asked to write on June 1, 2011 in which I explicitly refer to Professor Lemley’s argument against the first-to-invent position. In response to a law professors’ letter to Congress defending the first-to-file provision in the AIA that was circulated on an IP professors listserv (IPProfs), I sent out on IPProfs on June 11 a draft letter to Congress, calling for signatures from other law professors in support of my argument first presented in my essay (the final version is here). The next day, on June 12, Professor Lemley wrote on Facebook that my constitutional and legal argument made me the same as an “Obama-birther.”[2] Although he didn’t refer directly to me, it was clear that it was directed at me given that this posting by Lemley followed the day after my email to all IP professors asking them to join my letter to Congress, and I also was the only law professor actively writing on this issue and speaking on it on Capitol Hill up until then.

The following year, in a New York Times article on the court challenge to the first-to-file provision, Professor Lemley further characterized this constitutional argument as “the legal equivalent of fringe science.”

Before the spring of 2011, my writings on legal doctrine and policy were published only in law journals, and I had never participated in a policy debate over patent legislation. In my academic articles before this time, I had critiqued Professor Lemley’s incorrect historical claims about whether U.S. patents were considered monopolies or property rights, and they reflected a purely academic tone that one should expect in a law journal article (see here). Before spring 2011, I had never addressed Professor Lemley, nor had he addressed me, about the AIA, other legislation or court cases.

Professor Lemley’s “Obama-birther” attack on me was surprising, and when I replied in the comments to his Facebook post solely on the substantive merits of the issue of policy versus law, Professor Lemley defended his accusation against me. (This is evidenced in the screen shot.)[2] At the time, I was still a relatively junior academic, and this was an object lesson about what a senior academic at a top-five-ranked law school considers acceptable in addressing a much-more junior academic with whom he disagrees. This remark in 2011 was not an outlier either, as Professor Lemley has used similar rhetoric in the ensuing years in addressing academics with whom he disagrees; for instance, a couple years ago, Professor Lemley publicly referred to an academic conference that I and other patent scholars participated in as a “Tea Party convention.”

Of course, legal and constitutional disputes consist of opposing arguments. In court cases and legislative debates, there are colorable legal and policy arguments on both sides of a dispute. Few issues are so irrational that they are not even cognizable as having a supporting argument, such as astrology and conspiracy theories like the birthers or 9-11 truthers. So, I will simply let my essay speak for itself as to whether it makes me the same as an “Obama-birther” and if my argument represents “fringe science.”

More important, if or when a good case arises in which an inventor can rightly claim an identifiable and specific harm as a result of the statutory change created by the AIA, I hope my essay will be of some value.

[1] Full disclosure: The U.S. Business & Industry Council paid me for my time in writing the essay, which I disclosed in the essay itself. Unfortunately, as recently reported by IAM Magazine, other legal academics are not always so forthcoming about their financial and legal connections to companies when publicly commenting on court cases or advocating for enactment of legislation.

[2] This is a link to a screen shot I took last year only because the Facebook post by Professor Lemley recently disappeared after I only quoted the language from it about a month ago when I shared on Facebook my essay with my friends and colleagues.

UPDATE on June 7: I added some more supporting links and some additional information after this was initially published on June 6, 2016.

In Constitutional Law, Facebook, Intellectual Property, Patent, Platforms , , , , , , ,
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Intellectual Property, Innovation and Economic Growth: Mercatus Gets it Wrong

Adam Mossoff —  28 August 2014

[Cross posted at the CPIP Blog.]

By Mark Schultz & Adam Mossoff

A handful of increasingly noisy critics of intellectual property (IP) have emerged within free market organizations. Both the emergence and vehemence of this group has surprised most observers, since free market advocates generally support property rights. It’s true that there has long been a strain of IP skepticism among some libertarian intellectuals. However, the surprised observer would be correct to think that the latest critique is something new. In our experience, most free market advocates see the benefit and importance of protecting the property rights of all who perform productive labor – whether the results are tangible or intangible.

How do the claims of this emerging critique stand up? We have had occasion to examine the arguments of free market IP skeptics before. (For example, see here, here, here.) So far, we have largely found their claims wanting.

We have yet another occasion to examine their arguments, and once again we are underwhelmed and disappointed. We recently posted an essay at AEI’s Tech Policy Daily prompted by an odd report recently released by the Mercatus Center, a free-market think tank. The Mercatus report attacks recent research that supposedly asserts, in the words of the authors of the Mercatus report, that “the existence of intellectual property in an industry creates the jobs in that industry.” They contend that this research “provide[s] no theoretical or empirical evidence to support” its claims of the importance of intellectual property to the U.S. economy.

Our AEI essay responds to these claims by explaining how these IP skeptics both mischaracterize the studies that they are attacking and fail to acknowledge the actual historical and economic evidence on the connections between IP, innovation, and economic prosperity. We recommend that anyone who may be confused by the assertions of any IP skeptics waving the banner of property rights and the free market read our essay at AEI, as well as our previous essays in which we have called out similarly odd statements from Mercatus about IP rights.

The Mercatus report, though, exemplifies many of the concerns we raise about these IP skeptics, and so it deserves to be considered at greater length.

For instance, something we touched on briefly in our AEI essay is the fact that the authors of this Mercatus report offer no empirical evidence of their own within their lengthy critique of several empirical studies, and at best they invoke thin theoretical support for their contentions.

This is odd if only because they are critiquing several empirical studies that develop careful, balanced and rigorous models for testing one of the biggest economic questions in innovation policy: What is the relationship between intellectual property and jobs and economic growth?

Apparently, the authors of the Mercatus report presume that the burden of proof is entirely on the proponents of IP, and that a bit of hand waving using abstract economic concepts and generalized theory is enough to defeat arguments supported by empirical data and plausible methodology.

This move raises a foundational question that frames all debates about IP rights today: On whom should the burden rest? On those who claim that IP has beneficial economic effects? Or on those who claim otherwise, such as the authors of the Mercatus report?

The burden of proof here is an important issue. Too often, recent debates about IP rights have started from an assumption that the entire burden of proof rests on those investigating or defending IP rights. Quite often, IP skeptics appear to believe that their criticism of IP rights needs little empirical or theoretical validation, beyond talismanic invocations of “monopoly” and anachronistic assertions that the Framers of the US Constitution were utilitarians.

As we detail in our AEI essay, though, the problem with arguments like those made in the Mercatus report is that they contradict history and empirics. For the evidence that supports this claim, including citations to the many studies that are ignored by the IP skeptics at Mercatus and elsewhere, check out the essay.

Despite these historical and economic facts, one may still believe that the US would enjoy even greater prosperity without IP. But IP skeptics who believe in this counterfactual world face a challenge. As a preliminary matter, they ought to acknowledge that they are the ones swimming against the tide of history and prevailing belief. More important, the burden of proof is on them – the IP skeptics – to explain why the U.S. has long prospered under an IP system they find so odious and destructive of property rights and economic progress, while countries that largely eschew IP have languished. This obligation is especially heavy for one who seeks to undermine empirical work such as the USPTO Report and other studies.

In sum, you can’t beat something with nothing. For IP skeptics to contest this evidence, they should offer more than polemical and theoretical broadsides. They ought to stop making faux originalist arguments that misstate basic legal facts about property and IP, and instead offer their own empirical evidence. The Mercatus report, however, is content to confine its empirics to critiques of others’ methodology – including claims their targets did not make.

For example, in addition to the several strawman attacks identified in our AEI essay, the Mercatus report constructs another strawman in its discussion of studies of copyright piracy done by Stephen Siwek for the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI). Mercatus inaccurately and unfairly implies that Siwek’s studies on the impact of piracy in film and music assumed that every copy pirated was a sale lost – this is known as “the substitution rate problem.” In fact, Siwek’s methodology tackled that exact problem.

IPI and Siwek never seem to get credit for this, but Siwek was careful to avoid the one-to-one substitution rate estimate that Mercatus and others foist on him and then critique as empirically unsound. If one actually reads his report, it is clear that Siwek assumes that bootleg physical copies resulted in a 65.7% substitution rate, while illegal downloads resulted in a 20% substitution rate. Siwek’s methodology anticipates and renders moot the critique that Mercatus makes anyway.

After mischaracterizing these studies and their claims, the Mercatus report goes further in attacking them as supporting advocacy on behalf of IP rights. Yes, the empirical results have been used by think tanks, trade associations and others to support advocacy on behalf of IP rights. But does that advocacy make the questions asked and resulting research invalid? IP skeptics would have trumpeted results showing that IP-intensive industries had a minimal economic impact, just as Mercatus policy analysts have done with alleged empirical claims about IP in other contexts. In fact, IP skeptics at free-market institutions repeatedly invoke studies in policy advocacy that allegedly show harm from patent litigation, despite these studies suffering from far worse problems than anything alleged in their critiques of the USPTO and other studies.

Finally, we noted in our AEI essay how it was odd to hear a well-known libertarian think tank like Mercatus advocate for more government-funded programs, such as direct grants or prizes, as viable alternatives to individual property rights secured to inventors and creators. There is even more economic work being done beyond the empirical studies we cited in our AEI essay on the critical role that property rights in innovation serve in a flourishing free market, as well as work on the economic benefits of IP rights over other governmental programs like prizes.

Today, we are in the midst of a full-blown moral panic about the alleged evils of IP. It’s alarming that libertarians – the very people who should be defending all property rights – have jumped on this populist bandwagon. Imagine if free market advocates at the turn of the Twentieth Century had asserted that there was no evidence that property rights had contributed to the Industrial Revolution. Imagine them joining in common cause with the populist Progressives to suppress the enforcement of private rights and the enjoyment of economic liberty. It’s a bizarre image, but we are seeing its modern-day equivalent, as these libertarians join the chorus of voices arguing against property and private ordering in markets for innovation and creativity.

It’s also disconcerting that Mercatus appears to abandon its exceptionally high standards for scholarly work-product when it comes to IP rights. Its economic analyses and policy briefs on such subjects as telecommunications regulation, financial and healthcare markets, and the regulatory state have rightly made Mercatus a respected free-market institution. It’s unfortunate that it has lent this justly earned prestige and legitimacy to stale and derivative arguments against property and private ordering in the innovation and creative industries. It’s time to embrace the sound evidence and back off the rhetoric.

In Copyright, Intellectual Property, Law & Economics, Patent, Telecommunications , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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New Paper on SSOs, SEP and Antitrust by Joanna Tsai & Joshua Wright

Adam Mossoff —  18 August 2014

An important new paper was recently posted to SSRN by Commissioner Joshua Wright and Joanna Tsai.  It addresses a very hot topic in the innovation industries: the role of patented innovation in standard setting organizations (SSO), what are known as standard essential patents (SEP), and whether the nature of the contractual commitment that adheres to a SEP — specifically, a licensing commitment known by another acronym, FRAND (Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory) — represents a breakdown in private ordering in the efficient commercialization of new technology.  This is an important contribution to the growing literature on patented innovation and SSOs, if only due to the heightened interest in these issues by the FTC and the Antitrust Division at the DOJ.

http://ssrn.com/abstract=2467939.

“Standard Setting, Intellectual Property Rights, and the Role of Antitrust in Regulating Incomplete Contracts”

JOANNA TSAI, Government of the United States of America – Federal Trade Commission
Email:
JOSHUA D. WRIGHT, Federal Trade Commission, George Mason University School of Law
Email:

A large and growing number of regulators and academics, while recognizing the benefits of standardization, view skeptically the role standard setting organizations (SSOs) play in facilitating standardization and commercialization of intellectual property rights (IPRs). Competition agencies and commentators suggest specific changes to current SSO IPR policies to reduce incompleteness and favor an expanded role for antitrust law in deterring patent holdup. These criticisms and policy proposals are based upon the premise that the incompleteness of SSO contracts is inefficient and the result of market failure rather than an efficient outcome reflecting the costs and benefits of adding greater specificity to SSO contracts and emerging from a competitive contracting environment. We explore conceptually and empirically that presumption. We also document and analyze changes to eleven SSO IPR policies over time. We find that SSOs and their IPR policies appear to be responsive to changes in perceived patent holdup risks and other factors. We find the SSOs’ responses to these changes are varied across SSOs, and that contractual incompleteness and ambiguity for certain terms persist both across SSOs and over time, despite many revisions and improvements to IPR policies. We interpret this evidence as consistent with a competitive contracting process. We conclude by exploring the implications of these findings for identifying the appropriate role of antitrust law in governing ex post opportunism in the SSO setting.

In Antitrust & Competition, Antitrust Division, Federal Trade Commission, Intellectual Property, Justice Department, Patent, Regulation, Standard Setting , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Teslas’s New Patent Policy: Long Live the Patent System!

Adam Mossoff —  13 August 2014

[First posted to the CPIP Blog on June 17, 2014]

Last Thursday, Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, issued an announcement on the company’s blog with a catchy title: “All Our Patent Are Belong to You.” Commentary in social media and on blogs, as well as in traditional newspapers, jumped to the conclusion that Tesla is abandoning its patents and making them “freely” available to the public for whomever wants to use them. As with all things involving patented innovation these days, the reality of Tesla’s new patent policy does not match the PR spin or the buzz on the Internet.

The reality is that Tesla is not disclaiming its patent rights, despite Musk’s title to his announcement or his invocation in his announcement of the tread-worn cliché today that patents impede innovation. In fact, Tesla’s new policy is an example of Musk exercising patent rights, not abandoning them.

If you’re not puzzled by Tesla’s announcement, you should be. This is because patents are a type of property right that secures the exclusive rights to make, use, or sell an invention for a limited period of time. These rights do not come cheap — inventions cost time, effort, and money to create and companies like Tesla then exploit these property rights in spending even more time, effort and money in converting inventions into viable commercial products and services sold in the marketplace. Thus, if Tesla’s intention is to make its ideas available for public use, why, one may wonder, did it bother to expend the tremendous resources in acquiring the patents in the first place?

The key to understanding this important question lies in a single phrase in Musk’s announcement that almost everyone has failed to notice: “Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.” (emphasis added)

What does “in good faith” mean in this context? Fortunately, one intrepid reporter at the L.A. Times asked this question, and the answer from Musk makes clear that this new policy is not an abandonment of patent rights in favor of some fuzzy notion of the public domain, but rather it’s an exercise of his company’s patent rights: “Tesla will allow other manufacturers to use its patents in “good faith” – essentially barring those users from filing patent-infringement lawsuits against [Tesla] or trying to produce knockoffs of Tesla’s cars.” In the legalese known to patent lawyers and inventors the world over, this is not an abandonment of Tesla’s patents, this is what is known as a cross license.

In plain English, here’s the deal that Tesla is offering to manufacturers and users of its electrical car technology: in exchange for using Tesla’s patents, the users of Tesla’s patents cannot file patent infringement lawsuits against Tesla if Tesla uses their other patents. In other words, this is a classic deal made between businesses all of the time — you can use my property and I can use your property, and we cannot sue each other. It’s a similar deal to that made between two neighbors who agree to permit each other to cross each other’s backyard. In the context of patented innovation, this agreement is more complicated, but it is in principle the same thing: if automobile manufacturer X decides to use Tesla’s patents, and Tesla begins infringing X’s patents on other technology, then X has agreed through its prior use of Tesla’s patents that it cannot sue Tesla. Thus, each party has licensed the other to make, use and sell their respective patented technologies; in patent law parlance, it’s a “cross license.”

The only thing unique about this cross licensing offer is that Tesla publicly announced it as an open offer for anyone willing to accept it. This is not a patent “free for all,” and it certainly is not tantamount to Tesla “taking down the patent wall.” These are catchy sound bites, but they in fact obfuscate the clear business-minded nature of this commercial decision.

For anyone perhaps still doubting what is happening here, the same L.A Times story further confirms that Tesla is not abandoning the patent system. As stated to the reporter: “Tesla will continue to seek patents for its new technology to prevent others from poaching its advancements.” So much for the much ballyhooed pronouncements last week of how Tesla’s new patent (licensing) policy “reminds us of the urgent need for patent reform”! Musk clearly believes that the patent system is working just great for the new technological innovation his engineers are creating at Tesla right now.

For those working in the innovation industries, Tesla’s decision to cross license its old patents makes sense. Tesla Motors has already extracted much of the value from these old patents: Musk was able to secure venture capital funding for his startup company and he was able to secure for Tesla a dominant position in the electrical car market through his exclusive use of this patented innovation. (Venture capitalists consistently rely on patents in making investment decisions, and for anyone who doubts this need to watch only a few episodes of Shark Tank.) Now that everyone associates radical, cutting-edge innovation with Tesla, Musk can shift in his strategic use of his company’s assets, including his intellectual property rights, such as relying more heavily on the goodwill associated with the Tesla trademark. This is clear, for instance, from the statement to the LA Times that companies or individuals agreeing to the “good faith” terms of Tesla’s license agree not to make “knockoffs of Tesla’s cars.”

There are other equally important commercial reasons for Tesla adopting its new cross-licensing policy, but the point has been made. Tesla’s new cross-licensing policy for its old patents is not Musk embracing “the open source philosophy” (as he asserts in his announcement). This may make good PR given the overheated rhetoric today about the so-called “broken patent system,” but it’s time people recognize the difference between PR and a reasonable business decision that reflects a company that has used (old) patents to acquire a dominant market position and is now changing its business model given these successful developments.

At a minimum, people should recognize that Tesla is not declaring that it will not bring patent infringement lawsuits, but only that it will not sue people with whom it has licensed its patented innovation. This is not, contrary to one law professor’s statement, a company “refrain[ing] from exercising their patent rights to the fullest extent of the law.” In licensing its patented technology, Tesla is in fact exercising its patent rights to the fullest extent of the law, and that is exactly what the patent system promotes in the myriad business models and innovative

In Intellectual Property, Patent, Regulation , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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The Final Order in the FTC’s Google standard-essential patents case and the continuing danger to standard-setting

Geoffrey Manne —  31 July 2013

On July 24, the Federal Trade Commission issued a modified complaint and consent order in the Google/Motorola case. The FTC responded to the 25 comments on the proposed Order by making several amendments, but the Final Order retains the original order’s essential restrictions on injunctions, as the FTC explains in a letter accompanying the changes. With one important exception, the modifications were primarily minor changes to the required process by which Google/Motorola must negotiate and arbitrate with potential licensees. Although an improvement on the original order, the Complaint and Final Order’s continued focus on the use of injunctions to enforce SEPs presents a serious risk of consumer harm, as I discuss below.

The most significant modification in the new Complaint is the removal of the original UDAP claim. As suggested in my comments on the Order, there is no basis in law for such a claim against Google, and it’s a positive step that the FTC seems to have agreed. Instead, the FTC ended up resting its authority solely upon an Unfair Methods of Competition claim, even though the Commission failed to develop any evidence of harm to competition—as both Commissioner Wright and Commissioner Ohlhausen would (sensibly) require.

Unfortunately, the FTC’s letter offers no additional defense of its assertion of authority, stating only that

[t]he Commission disagrees with commenters who argue that the Commission’s actions in this case are outside of its authority to challenge unfair methods of competition under Section 5 and lack a limiting principle. As reflected in the Commission’s recent statements in Bosch and the Commission’s initial Statement in this matter, this action is well within our Section 5 authority, which both Congress and the Supreme Court have expressly deemed to extend beyond the Sherman Act.

Another problem, as noted by Commissioner Ohlhausen in her dissent from the original order, is that

the consent agreement creates doctrinal confusion. The Order contradicts the decisions of federal courts, standard-setting organizations (“SSOs”), and other stakeholders about the availability of injunctive relief on SEPs and the meaning of concepts like willing licensee and FRAND.

The FTC’s statements in Bosch and this case should not be thought of as law on par with actual court decisions unless we want to allow the FTC to determine the scope of its own authority unilaterally.

This is no small issue. On July 30, the FTC used the Google settlement, along with the settlement in Bosch, as examples of the FTC’s authority in the area of policing SEPs during a hearing on the issue. And as FTC Chairwoman Ramirez noted in response to questions for the record in a different hearing earlier in 2013,

Section 5 of the FTC Act has been developed over time, case-by-case, in the manner of common law. These precedents provide the Commission and the business community with important guidance regarding the appropriate scope and use of the FTC’s Section 5 authority.

But because nearly all of these cases have resulted in consent orders with an administrative agency and have not been adjudicated in court, they aren’t, in fact, developed “in the manner of common law.” Moreover, settlements aren’t binding on anyone except the parties to the settlement. Nevertheless, the FTC has pointed to these sorts of settlements (and congressional testimony summarizing them) as sufficient guidance to industry on the scope of its Section 5 authority. But as we noted in our amicus brief in the Wyndham litigation (in which the FTC makes this claim in the context of its “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” authority):

Settlements (and testimony summarizing them) do not in any way constrain the FTC’s subsequent enforcement decisions; they cannot alone be the basis by which the FTC provides guidance on its unfairness authority because, unlike published guidelines, they do not purport to lay out general enforcement principles and are not recognized as doing so by courts and the business community.

Beyond this more general problem, the Google Final Order retains its own, substantive problem: considerable constraints upon injunctions. The problem with these restraints are twofold: (1) Injunctions are very important to an efficient negotiation process, as recognized by the FTC itself; and (2) if patent holders may no longer pursue injunctions consistently with antitrust law, one would expect a reduction in consumer welfare.

In its 2011 Report on the “IP Marketplace,” the FTC acknowledged the important role of injunctions in preserving the value of patents and in encouraging efficient private negotiation.

Second, the credible threat of an injunction deters infringement in the first place. This results from the serious consequences of an injunction for an infringer, including the loss of sunk investment. Third, a predictable injunction threat will promote licensing by the parties. Private contracting is generally preferable to a compulsory licensing regime because the parties will have better information about the appropriate terms of a license than would a court, and more flexibility in fashioning efficient agreements. But denying an injunction every time an infringer’s switching costs exceed the economic value of the invention would dramatically undermine the ability of a patent to deter infringement and encourage innovation. For this reason, courts should grant injunctions in the majority of cases.

Building on insights from Commissioner Wright and Professor Kobayashi, I argued in my comments that injunctions create conditions that

increase innovation, the willingness to license generally and the willingness to enter into FRAND commitments in particular–all to the likely benefit of consumer welfare.

Monopoly power granted by IP law encourages innovation because it incentivizes creativity through expected profits. If the FTC interprets its UMC authority in a way that constrains the ability of patent holders to effectively police their patent rights, then less innovation would be expected–to the detriment of consumers as well as businesses.

And this is precisely what has happened. Innovative technology companies are responding to the current SEP enforcement environment exactly as we would expect them to—by avoiding the otherwise-consumer-welfare enhancing standardization process entirely.

Thus, for example, at a recent event sponsored by Global Competition Review (gated), representatives from Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens and Qualcomm made no bones about the problems they see and where they’re headed if they persist:

[Jenni Lukander, global head of competition law at Nokia] said the problem of “free-riding”, whereby technology companies adopt standard essential patents (SEPs) without complying with fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing terms was a “far bigger problem” than patent holders pursuing injunctive relief. She said this behaviour was “unsustainable”, as it discouraged innovation and jeopardised standardisation.

Because of the current atmosphere, Lukander said, Nokia has stepped back from the standardisation process, electing either not to join certain standard-setting organisations (SSOs) or not to contribute certain technologies to these organisations.

The fact that every licence negotiation takes places “under the threat of injunction litigation” is not a sign of failure, said Lukander, but an indicator of the system working “as it was designed to work”.

This, said [Dan Hermele, director of IP rights and licensing for Qualcomm Europe], amounted to “reverse hold-up”. “The licensor is pressured to accept less than reasonable licensing terms due to the threat of unbalanced regulatory intervention,” he said, adding that the trend was moving to an “infringe and litigate model”, which threatened to harm innovators, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, “for whom IPR is their life blood”.

Beat Weibel, chief IP counsel at Siemens, said…innovation can only be beneficial if it occurs within a “safe and strong IP system,” he said, where a “willing licensee is favoured over a non-willing licensee” and the enforcer is not a “toothless tiger”.

It remains to be seen if the costs to consumers from firms curtailing their investments in R&D or withholding their patents from the standard-setting process will outweigh the costs (yes, some costs do exist; the patent system is not frictionless and it is far from perfect, of course) from the “over”-enforcement of SEPs lamented by critics. But what is clear is that these costs can’t be ignored. Reverse hold-up can’t be wished away, and there is a serious risk that the harm likely to be caused by further eroding the enforceability of SEPs by means of injunctions will significantly outweigh whatever benefits it may also confer.

Meanwhile, stay tuned for tomorrow’s TOTM blog symposium on “Regulating the Regulators–Guidance for the FTC’s Section 5 Unfair Methods of Competition Authority” for much more discussion on this issue.

In Antitrust & Competition, Federal Trade Commission, Google, Intellectual Property, Law & Economics, Patent, Platforms, Section 5 , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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The Value of Injunctions — Douglas Dynamics v. Buyers Products Co. (Fed. Cir. May 21, 2013)

Adam Mossoff —  25 July 2013

Over at the blog for the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property, I posted a short essay discussing the Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Douglas Dynamics v. Buyers Products (Fed. Cir. May 21, 2013).  Here’s a small taste:

The Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Douglas Dynamics, LLC, v. Buyers Products Co. (Fed. Cir. May 21, 2013) is very important given the widespread, albeit mistaken, belief today that the Supreme Court’s decision in eBay v. MercExchange (2005) established that damages and not injunctions are the presumptive remedy for patent infringement. ….

On appeal, Chief Judge Randall Rader resoundingly disagreed with Judge Conley’s belief that the “public interest” is always better served by the introduction of a new competitor who is selling cheaper products.  This is what happened in this case, as Douglas Dynamics and Buyers Products Company are competitors in the sale of snowplow blades.  Instead, Chief Judge Rader recognized that its act of infringement as such is what gave Buyers Products Company its market advantage in undercutting Douglas Dynamics’ prices.  Because it did not have to incur Douglas Dynamics’ ex ante expenses in engaging in innovative research and development, Buyers Products Company’s infringement permitted it the economic advantage of being able to undercut Douglas Dynamics prices’ and thus enter the allegedly “untapped market segment” of cheaper snowplow blades. It was precisely this expansion of a consumer market that the district court relied on in its denial of Douglas Dynamics’ requested injunction. In sum, the district court used an infringement-created expansion of the market to justify denying an injunction and awarding a compulsory license to the patent-owner, which effectively rewarded Buyer Products Company for its act of infringement.

In reversing the district court’s award of a reasonable royalty, Chief Judge Rader explained the basic economic principle of dynamic efficiency that animates the Patent Act in securing property rights to inventors in their patented innovation ….

As bloggers are wont to say, go read the whole thing.

In Intellectual Property, Patent , , , , , , , ,
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Upcoming Teleforum: The State of the Patent System — A Discussion with Chief Judge Rader

Adam Mossoff —  2 April 2013

The State of the Patent System: A Discussion with Chief Judge Rader

A teleforum on Thursday, April 11, at 2pm. Hosted by George Mason Law School’s Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property Teleforum and the Federalist Society‘s Intellectual Property Practice Group.

Today, people read daily complaints about the “broken” patent system, and thus it’s unsurprising that there are numerous and wide-ranging attempts to “reform” the patent system. Legislative reform efforts include the proposed SHIELD Act, which would impose a losing-plaintiff-pays litigation system solely on patent-licensing companies and further revisions to the America Invents Act of 2011. Regulatory agencies also have skin in the patent reform game: the FTC recently reached settlements with Bosch and Google that restricted their rights to enforce their patents in standardized technology, and the FTC is currently considering whether to condemn the patent-licensing business model as “anti-competitive.” The courts are heavily involved as well: in addition to the many patent cases it has decided in recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has four major patent cases on its docket this year, which suggests that it also agrees that the patent system is in serious need of legal reform. Yet, patents today secure innovation once imagined only as science fiction – tablet computers, smart phones, genetically modified seeds, genetic testing for cancer, personalized medical treatments for debilitating diseases, and many others – and these technological marvels are now a commonplace feature of our lives. This Teleforum with the Honorable Randall Rader, Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit – a digital “fireside chat” – will explore these and other issues in assessing whether the patent system is broken or whether it is fundamentally sound.

Featuring:

• Hon. Randall R. Rader, Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit
• Moderator: Prof. Adam Mossoff, Co-Director, Academic Programs and Senior Scholar, Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property, George Mason Law School

Agenda:

Call begins at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Thursday, April 11, 2013.

More information here.

In Google, Intellectual Property, Patent, Platforms, Truth on the Market , , , , , , ,
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The anti-patent crowd seems to think your smartphone doesn’t actually exist

Geoffrey Manne —  19 September 2012

I respect Alex Tabarrock immensely, but his recent post on the relationship between “patent strength” and innovation is, while pretty, pretty silly. The entirety of the post is the picture I have pasted here.

The problem is that neither Alex nor anyone else actually knows that this is “where we are,” nor exactly what the relationship between innovation and patent strength is — in large part because we don’t really know what the strength of patents is.

I love, for example, when the anti-patent crowd crows about patent thickets and their alleged disastrous consequences for complex devices like smartphones — often posted to Twitter from their smart phones.  The reality is that we have smartphones and innumerable other complex products besides.  Would we have more or better ones if the patent system were different?  Maybe – show me the data.  Defining the but-for world is notoriously difficult, and I’m not saying one can’t make principled arguments about the patent system without proving a negative.  But Alex’s graph and most comments by the patent haters imply a lot more precision about what we know than we actually have.  The relevant question is the marginal one, but a lot of the criticism of the patent system seems to me to take advantage of our uncertainty to imply that the benefits of weaker patents would be practically infinite.  You can criticize patents for making complex products more difficult to bring to market on the basis of basic economic logic, but when your analysis defines costs with little more rigor than Alex’s napkin contains, your policy footing should be vanishingly small.  Frankly, as Richard Epstein points out, Judge Posner’s recent foray into this debate, although longer, is equally short on evidence.

Meanwhile Adam Mossoff has explored these issues with some compelling evidence and in great detail in his paper on the sewing machine wars of the 1850s and draws a very different lesson.

In the modern world the evidence supporting dire claims is equally weak, although you wouldn’t know it from media coverage and academic discourse that gloms on to events like the recent Apple-Samsung trial as evidence that the new Dark Ages are upon us.  Between the software Alex used to make that graph, the computer on which that software was run, and the enormous range of other innovations that brought it from his mind to my digital doorstep, we seem to be managing to produce and use an enormous amount of innovation.  What value, exactly, does Alex think is contained in the innovation delta between his red dot and the top of the curve?  As Richard Epstein put it:

Nor is there any obvious global sign of patent malaise in the software industry. Last I looked, the level of technological improvement in the electronics and software industries has continued to impress. The rise of the iPad, the rapid growth of social media, the increased use of the once humble cell phone as a mobile platform for a dizzying array of applications—these do not point to industries in their death throes. It may well be the case that a better patent system could have seen more rapid growth in technology.

I think he meant to add something like: “but we don’t know that, and we sure don’t know how much “better” and at what cost.”

Most important, the patent system just isn’t as “strong” most critics would have you believe.  Our liability regime (especially post-eBay) injects enormous uncertainty into the process.  Enforcement costs are high.  And the patent system doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  Antitrust laws, tax laws, trade laws, financial regulation, consumer protection rules, layer upon layer of regulatory oversight, etc., etc. serve to weaken these “optimal” incentives to innovate that simplistic analyses of the patent system largely assume away.  Ideally, perhaps, we’d remove all that detritus and then follow the critics’ advice.  But that isn’t going to happen, and in the meantime the interactions between various overlapping regulatory and legal rules — including the patent system itself, of course — are complex and poorly-understood.  Perhaps we could do better, but it is by no means clear that further weakening patent rights will get us there.  And in the meantime, reports of innovation’s death seem like a bit of an exaggeration.

In Apple, Intellectual Property, Patent, Platforms, Twitter , , , ,
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