Patent trolls (or sharks) are small patent holding individuals or firms who trap R&D intense manufacturers in patent … academic standpoint. In this paper we show why patent sharks can operate profitably, why they are of growing concern, how … indemnification rules with strategic rationales of small patent-holding firms within a game-theoretical model. Our central finding is …

Patent trolls appropriate profits from innovation solely by enforcing patents against infringers. They are often … effectively terminate the troll business. In this paper, we shed light on this issue by empirically analyzing trolls patent … acquisitions. We draw on a unique dataset of 392 U.S. patents acquired by known patent trolls between 1997 and 2006, which we …

Patent trolls appropriate innovation rents by threatening to block other players’ R&D-related value creation. Legal … manufacturers, we show that this is not the case. Patent extortion will remain viable in technologically crowded industries as long … patent trolls, and discuss adjustments to their R&D strategies regarding product design, interaction with trolls …

Patent application numbers grow exponentially in many industries, a phenomenon that has been linked to high … fragmentation of patent ownership. Contradicting these findings and theoretical arguments, we show that such fragmentation is not a … precondition for sudden and strong increases in patenting. We describe and analyze a patent portfolio race in an industry with …

In this paper we explain how firms seeking to take advantage of distributed innovation and outsourcing can bridge the …