Quantitative indicators for evaluating the competitiveness of a patent

Abstract

The competitiveness of a patent becomes crucial for enforcement and utilization of the patent rights, which are required for protection of business and ensuring of profits of companies. However, there have been few quantitative studies on the competitiveness of a patent. This study investigates quantitative indicators of the competitiveness of a patent by analysing patents involved in patent infringement lawsuits filed in trial courts in Japan. It is found that ratios of the numbers of independent claims to references cited by examiners have high correlations with the competitiveness of a patent. This study indicates that ensuring of the maximal scope with avoidance of prior inventions is critical for improvement of the competitiveness of a patent. Patent practitioners must perform claim-drafting recognizing differences among independent claims, each of which overlaps another independent claim in order to satisfy the requirement of unity of invention stipulated in patent laws of many countries to obtain winnable patents. Thus a high degree of perceptiveness in patent practice, which correlates with the ability of a patent practitioner, is required to make plural independent claims to fully cover the maximal scope within the restriction of unity of invention.