{{McNair ProjectsAcademicPaper|Project TitleHas title=Little Guy (Academic Paper),Can Small Firms Mitigate their Disadvantages in Patent Litigation?|Topic AreaHas author=Patents and Innovation,Ed Egan|OwnerHas RAs=Amir Kazempour, Marcela Interiano|Start Term=Summer 2016,|Status=Active,|Deliverable=Academic Paper,|Audience=Academics,|Keywords=Innovation, Small Business,|Primary BillingHas paper status=AccMcNair01,Tabled
}}
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==Abstract==
<section begin=Little Guy />
The Little Guy Academic Paper will focus on the disproportionate patent litigation of small firms. The paper will also explore the disadvantages faced by small firms may face in patent litigationand if/how they can be overcome. By using the patent data provided by the USPTO and Harvard Dataverse, [[Small Entity vs. Micro Entity | micro and small entities]] will be identified based on maintenance fees paid to the USPTO. Patent portfolios of all firms contained in both datasets will be constructed. By making the distinction between micro, small, taking into account renewals and large, comparisons reassignments. Comparisons will be draw between frequency and outcomes of litigationfor micro, small, and large. Data on patent litigation will be acquired through the [https://lexmachina.com/ | Lex Machina database].We will then explore changes in litigation frequency when small firms are venture backed, are acquired, or transfer their patents to a market intermediary.
allpatent_clone=# SELECT COUNTThe only other major work we are aware of which looks into this is (*\cite{lanjouw2004protecting}) FROM citations WHERE citedpatentnumber IS NULL; count . The authors try to show that small patentees are at a significant disadvantage in protecting their patent rights since their greater litigation risk is not offset by more rapid resolution of their suit. Our study would distinguish itself by providing a new definition of small firms ---------- 23516667in (1 row\cite{lanjouw2004protecting})is defined to be those firms with an employment below the median of 5,245 employees, which is not small - and using of a richer data set that considers backing of small firms and patent reassignment.
allpatent_clone=# SELECT COUNT(*) FROM citations; count ---------- 97680838 (1 row)Our data set is gathered from multiple sources including USPTO Bulk Data, VentureXpert, Lex Machina, and our own data on IPRs, etc.
==Notes==Possible Solution====Jul 8, 2016: The blank citedpatentnumbers were created due to inconsistency between the original type and the type in the citation table (string to integer). The blank entries mostly correspond to publication number, non-U.S. patent number, and non-standardized patent number. The next step would be to recreate the table accounting for these issues. The U.S. publication number could be matched to the publications numbers in the histpatent table and be replaced by the corresponding patent numbers.
Introduction of the America Invents Acts provides the small companies which qualify for a Micro Entity status to pay a discounted fee for maintenance of their patents. The foreign cited patents will maintenance fee code recorded in data would be moved used to identify the little guys. We believe micro entity status would better fit the definition of a small entity used in our paper. Relying on maintenance fee codes would enable us to identify a separate tablesmall subset of micro entities, however, we are trying to retroactively identify other companies which may qualify for micro entity status but were not captured through the maintenance fee data.
===Assignees Table==='Country' is missingOur analysis would heavily rely on the litigation data available through Pacer or Lex Machina data set. allpatent_clone=# SELECT COUNT(*) FROM assignees WHERE country=' '; count --------- 2361543 (1 row) allpatent_clone=# SELECT COUNT(*) FROM assignees WHERE country='unknown'; count ------- 3918 (1 row) allpatent_clone=# SELECT COUNT(*) FROM assignees WHERE country IN ('unknown'Ideally,' ') AND state=' '; count --------- 1851353 (1 row)UPDATE: The source of the problem seems we would like to be have the Harvard Dataverse.===Assignees & assigneesUSU Tables===No information provided about following variables for the assignee. No entries for orgname or first and last names. allpatent_clone=# SELECT COUNT(patentnumber) FROM assignees WHERE (orgname='' OR orgname IS NULL) AND (firstname='' OR firstname IS NULL) AND (lastname='' OR lastname IS NULL); count time frame of 2000-01------- 34479401 to present for all the patent cases (1 rowcode 830) AssigneesUSU table was made with the following code: SELECT orgname, patentnumber, country, firstname, lastname, state INTO assigneesUSU -- assignees litigated in US,unknown, and blank entries FROM assignees WHERE country IN ('US', '', 'unknown') OR (state IS NOT NULL AND state!='') ORDER BY orgname; allpatent_clone=# SELECT COUNT(patentnumber) FROM assigneesUSU WHERE (orgname='' OR orgname IS NULL) AND (firstname='' OR firstname IS NULL) AND (lastname='' OR lastname IS NULL); count -------- 344793 (1 row)district courts.