Original: http://www.heckel.org/Heckel/ACM%20Paper/pattabs.htm

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Tables Comparing the Effectiveness of patents according to company size

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Company Size Large Small Total
Patent Activity
Patents granted 4 100% 5 100% 9 100%  
Protected commercial products 4 100% 5 100% 9 100%  
License appears to be available 4 100% 4 80% 8 89%  
Firm founded to develop technology 0 0% 4 80% 4 44%  
Sued Large Entities 0 0% 4 80% 4 44%  
Sued Small Entities 0 0% 2 50% 2 22%  
First Suit against Small Entity 0 0% 0 0% 0 0%  
Suits threatened 1 25% 5 100% 5 67%  
Patent Asserted (Notice sent) 2 50% 5 100% 7 78%  
Resolution (Patent Asserted)    
Infringement Removed 0 0% 1 20% 1 11%  
Product removed from market 0 0% 1 20% 1 11%  
Licenses 1 25% 2 40% 3 33%  
Unresolved 1 25% 1 20% 2 22%  
Nothing to Resolve (No notice ) 2 50% 0 0% 2 22%  
Total 4 100% 5 100% 9 100%  
Table 1.Patents cited in Against Software Patents. We treat multiple patents covering the same technology as a single patent. With the exception of Quantel, the small entities were less than a dozen people at the time the patent was filed, and the large entities were Fortune 1000 companies. We assume that if a lawsuit was threatened, a notice was sent; and if a lawsuit was filed, a lawsuit was first threatened. We assume that if a patent has been asserted-people have been sent notices-there is a matter to be resolved. Even if one characterizes Cadtrak and Refac as being in the business of litigating patents as some do, the relevant fact is that the original patentholders were small entities introducing commercial products protected by patents.

 
  Had Commercial Products Efficacy (Patents Asserted) Cost (000,000/yr) Cost-effectiveness
Large entity 4 2 0.03 67.8  
Small entity 5 5 0.01 500.  
Commercial Sector 9 7 0.04 175.  
Federally funded 1 0 $487.0 0.0021  
Table 2.Cost Effectiveness to Taxpayers of Innovation Sources. None of the 9 patents appears to result from federal funding. However, we arbitrarily allocate one patent to this category so as to prevent zero results. While the PTO is virtually self-funded, $1,800,000 of its $419,000,000 budget comes from taxpayers. Since about 25% of the patents are from small entities and 75% from large entities we distribute the $1,800,000 accordingly. We assume that 2% of the patents are software related; it is probably less. Government R & D in computer science was $487 million in fiscal 1989 of total Federally funded research of $61 billion.

 

(Last updated on 10/06/98)

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