Patent Litigation as an Information Transmission Mechanism
研究专利诉讼如何向潜在进入者揭示专利有效性信息，发现专利保护强度对专利持有人和模仿者的收益影响不连续，且加强知识产权不一定有利于专利持有人。
The literature on patent protection assumes a so called "fencepost" system, in which there would be no need to refer to the courts over questions of interpretation. In reality, we observe a myriad of patent infringement suit through which questions of utility, novelty, and nonobviousness are independently ruled on by a court. Therefore, patent litigation accompanying initial imitations can reveal important information about the validity of the contested patents for other potential entrants. This paper explores the implications of such information revelation through patent litigation. It is shown that the payoffs for the patentee and the initial imitator are highly discontinuous in the degree of patent protection. Furthermore, strengthening intellectual property rights is not necessarily desirable for the patentee. The analysis also has implications for interpreting empirical data on imitations lags.