Weak patents and patent thickets prevent follow-on innovation
Dean Baker et al, 2017 - co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington “Innovation, Intellectual Property, and Development: A BETTER SET OF APPROACHES FOR THE 21st CENTURY.” https://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/baker-jayadev-stiglitz-innovation-ip-development-2017-07.pdf //DH
Even in the United States and other advanced industrialised countries, the patent system is in a period of crisis. There is widespread concern over the proliferation of weak patents—those that are not real advances on existing knowledge but that are granted for a variety of reasons, including a structural bias towards granting patents in the patent offices of advanced industrialised economies. Weak patents 10 can provide an impediment to follow-on innovation, while providing at best weak incentives for innovative activities themselves.11 The myriad of patents has created a ’patent thicket‘, that in some sectors has not encouraged innovation, but on the contrary, has encouraged litigation. These problems are especially important in complex products (like a computer chip) where the production entails dozens of patents. The patent thicket has been exploited by patent trolls, i.e. law firms that buy up patents that look for possible infringement by important patents.