Patent Assertion Entities in Europe

This book chapter presents the findings of an empirical study of U.K. and German patent litigation involving patent assertion entities (PAEs). Overall, we find that PAEs account for roughly ten percent of patent suits filed in these countries during the time periods covered by our study: 2000-2013 for the UK and 2000-2008 for Germany. We also present a variety of additional data on the characteristics of European PAE suits and PAE-asserted patents and, finally, consider what our findings suggest are the most important reasons PAEs tend to avoid European courts. We conclude that, while many factors likely contribute to the relative scarcity of PAEs in Europe, the continent’s fee-shifting regimes stand out as a key deterrent to patent monetization.

Keywords: NPE, non-practicing entity, PAE, patent assertion entity, patent troll, Unified Patent Court, Unitary Patent, fee shifting, English Rule, attorney's fees

JEL Classification: O34, K41

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Love, Brian J. and Helmers, Christian and Helmers, Christian and Gaessler, Fabian and Ernicke, Maximilian, Patent Assertion Entities in Europe (November 12, 2015). D. Daniel Sokol (ed.), Patent Assertion Entities and Competition Policy, Cambridge University Press, 2016, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2689350