University patent litigation in the United States: Do we have a problem?

Abstract

In an attempt to increase revenues from patenting activities, some universities have started in recent years to pursue “overzealous” strategies to monetize their existing patents, by selling them to the highest bidder and enforcing them in court. In this paper we find quantitative evidence that patent litigation has an adverse effect on university technology transfer activities, reinforcing prior findings by Shane and Somaya (2007). However, we empirically show that universities do not litigate aggressively over patent infringement: not only do they litigate much less than patent assertion entities (PAEs), but we also observe no increase in terms of their propensity to litigate over the last two decades. Nor do we find any evidence of aggressive litigation strategies.