The quest for expansive intellectual property rights and the failure to disclose known relevant prior art
研究了企业为何在专利申请中不披露已知相关现有技术，发现随着发明人经验增加、以及在小而业绩差且依赖外部法律顾问的公司中，这种不披露行为更常见，这可能导致低质量专利被授予。
Expansive patent portfolios may be used by firms to fence off technological space for commercialization, impede the commercialization efforts of competitors, and enhance bargaining power in cross‐licensing negotiations. Low quality patents with claims that overlap those of other patents contribute to these portfolios and patent strategies. By failing to disclose known relevant prior art during the patenting process, inventors and their firms may be granted low quality patents with intellectual property claims which would not otherwise have been granted. We find that the failure of inventors to disclose known relevant prior art increases as they gain experience with the patenting process. Such failure is also greater among inventors employed by relatively small, poorly performing firms that rely on outsourced legal counsel during the application process . Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.