Unclear Patent Boundaries and Patent Infringement

Abstract

Legal scholars have long speculated that unclear boundaries of patents lead to patent infringement. However, the debate in economics on improving patent quality has mostly ignored this. This study is one of the first to explore how claim clarity, per se and together with claim limitations (a driver of patent scope), affect the likelihood of patent litigation and of winning a litigation lawsuit. Our findings suggest that clearer patents are litigated significantly less, in particular if they are narrow in scope, and that claim clarity increases the chances of winning in court.