Patent litigation in Europe

Cremers, Katrin, Ernicke, Max, Gaessler, Fabian, Harhoff, Dietmar, Helmers, Christian, McDonagh, Luke ORCID: 0000-0003-2085-5404, Schliessler, Paula and van Zeebroeck, Nicolas (2016) Patent litigation in Europe. European Journal of Law and Economics, 44 (1). pp. 1-44. ISSN 0929-1261

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Abstract

We compare patent litigation cases across four European jurisdictions— Germany, the UK (England and Wales), France, The Netherlands—using case-level data gathered from cases filed in the four jurisdictions during the period 2000–2008. Overall, we find substantial differences across jurisdictions in terms of caseloads— notably, courts in Germany hear by far the largest number of cases, not only in absolute terms, but also when taking macro-economic indicators into account—and we further find important cross-country variances in terms of case outcomes. Moreover, we show empirically that a considerable number of patents are litigated across multiple European jurisdictions; and further, that in the majority of these cases divergent case outcomes are reached across the different jurisdictions, suggesting that the long-suspected problem of inconsistency of decision-making in European patent litigation is in fact real. Finally, we note that the coming into force of the Unified Patent Court in Europe may, in the long term, help to alleviate this inconsistency problem.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://link.springer.com/journal/10657/volumes-an...
Additional Information:	© 2016 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Law
Date Deposited:	29 Jun 2020 15:45
Last Modified:	01 Nov 2024 22:21
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/105240

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