Determinants of opposition against EPO patent grants—the case of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals

By Dietmar Harhoff, M. Reitzig. 2004

411 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We analyse the determinants of opposition to biotechnology and pharmaceutical patents granted by the European Patent Office between 1978–96. Opposition can be considered an early form of patent validity challenge suit. In our sample, 8.6% of the patents are attacked in opposition proceedings. Using citation and patent family indicators we show that valuable patents are more likely to be attacked, and that opposition is particularly frequent in areas with strong cumulative patent numbers and with high technical or market uncertainty. We comment on the implications of these results for the design of the patent and litigation system.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Management of Technology and Innovation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d905c8c1c52cf3664ba6e6c80bc31368071078d0

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Citations in the corpus

The Market Value of R&D, Patents and Trademarks (2011, positive): “Oppositions filed and received: oppositions have been shown to indicate the value of patents (Harhoff and Reitzig, 2004; Harhoff et al., 2003a).”
Litigation and Settlement in Patent Infringement Cases (2002, background): “We assume that damages are a fraction of the penalty, like in Lanjouw and Lerner (1997), and that the patentholder does not receive the whole penalty, because of the procedure fees and lawyers’ retainers.”
Used, Blocking and Sleeping Patents: Empirical Evidence from a Large-Scale Inventor Survey (2016, background): “Strategic patenting, which is particularly important in cumulative technologies like semiconductors, software, and business methods, often results in legal uncertainty and may lead to inefficient litigation (Harhoff and Reitzig, 2004; Hall et al., 2009).”
The influence of strategic patenting on companies' patent portfolios (2009, methodology): “Consequently, those companies utilising patents to protect their own technological know-how receive not only a higher number of citations, but also of 11 See also Harhoff and Reitzig (2004).”
Patents versus ex post rewards: A new look (2003, neutral): “Similarly, Somaya (2003) studied 449 patent litigations in the computer industry and showed that in almost every case involving a suit and a counter suit, the counter suit was filed only 1 day after the suit, thus suggesting that in computer patents serve mainly as strategic devices in negotiations ”
To Be Financed or Not : The Role of Patents for Venture Capital Financing (2009, positive): “…opposition signals the presence of a valuable technology to the VC. Statistically, the VC can expect that the patent is revoked in one third of the cases, while the opposition is rejected or the patent is maintained in amended form in the remaining two thirds of cases (Harhoff and Reitzig 2004).”
Does Patent Strategy Shape the Long-Run Supply of Public Knowledge? Evidence from Human Genetics (2009, methodology): “Singapore Management University, kennethhuang@smu.edu.sg Fiona MURRAY Massachusetts Institute of Technology Follow this and additional works at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research Part of the Strategic Management Policy Commons, and the Technology and Innovation Commons”
Filing strategies and patent value (2011, neutral): “The same variable was associated with a negative coefficient in Guellec and van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie (2000, 2002) as well as in Harhoff and Reitzig (2004), and a non-significant or ambiguous parameter in Lanjouw and Schankerman (1997, 2001), Harhoff, Scherer, and Vopel (2002), Reitzig…”
How patenting informs VC investors - The case of biotechnology (2014, background): “Because engaging in an opposition procedure is costly, we expect that a technology has high commercial value, if a third party engages in opposition (Harhoff and Reitzig, 2004).”
Patents in the knowledge-based economy (2003, background): “Increases in the number 36This section is largely based on the description of the EPO examination and opposition system by Harhoff and Reitzig (2001).”
Inventors and invention processes in Europe: Results from the PatVal-EU survey (2007, background): “, 2003a), the number of countries in which the patent is registered for protection, and the incidence of opposition and annulment procedures (Harhoff and Reitzig, 2004). In addition, Lanjouw and Schankerman (2004) constructed a composite indicator of the quality of patents.”