Monday, October 27, 2014

Are Patents Worth The Paper They Are Printed On?

At the IP Scholars Conference held at UC Berkeley this past August 8, 2014, Joachim Henkel and Hans Zischka of the Technical University of Munich presented their paper on invalidation rates for issued patents. Their presentation is here. Henkel/Zischka suggest that if all patents issued by Germany went through invalidation proceedings, then about 75% of issued patents would be ruled either partially or fully invalid. As presented in their report, invalidation rates for other countries are:

  • Japan:                   73%     
  • United States:       60%
  • Australia               53%
  • United Kingdom:  50%
  • France:                 27%

This report should not provide much confidence to a patentee over the perceived strength of its patent.

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