专利侵权诉讼中无效宣告倾向的影响因素研究

Research on the influencing factors of patent invalidation propensity in patent infringement litigation

专利无效宣告制度是优化专利质量的有效政策工具。厘清专利无效宣告倾向的影响因素,有利于提高专利无效宣告制度效率、促进中国专利质量提升。从交易成本理论出发,以2019年公布的671件发明专利侵权案为样本,使用Logit回归模型对专利侵权诉讼中无效宣告倾向的影响因素展开实证分析。研究发现,专利法律稳定性、专利无效宣告成本抑制了被告的无效宣告倾向,原告的诉讼期望、专利市场价值促进了被告的无效宣告倾向,而信息不对称程度与无效宣告倾向没有显著相关性。我国应保障专利权人实现其合理的诉讼期待利益,建立专利无效宣告费用补偿或转移规则,强调高质量专利培育与促进专利技术转移转化对提升或发挥专利市场价值的效用,以期实现优化中国专利质量之政策目标。

Patent invalidation is an effective tool for adjusting patent examination errors and optimizing patent quality. However, the utilization rate of China’s patent invalidation system is at a low level, and it is unable to achieve its function. Therefore, how to increase the probability of patent invalidation requests becomes a key issue in improving the utilization rate of the patent invalidation system. For the convenience of research, we define the probability of a request for patent invalidation as patent invalidation propensity and propose what factors will affect and how to affect it. In this regard, we introduce transaction cost theory to explain the institutional logic and economic principles of patent invalidation propensity. According to the litigation dispute selection model, we propose the five determinants that affect the patent invalidation propensity, including the legal stability of the patent, litigation expectation, cost of the patent invalidation, the market value of patents, and degree of information asymmetry. Furthermore, we collect 671 invention patent infringement lawsuits announced in 2019 through the Wolters Kluwer advanced law and incoPat patent database. Meanwhile, five proxy variables, namely the patent invalidation experience, patent damages, type of party, scale of patent family, and claim, are selected as independent variables, and the Logistic regression model is used to conduct an empirical analysis of the influencing factors of patent invalidation propensity in litigation. The research finds that the legal stability of the patent and the cost of patent invalidation weaken the defendant’s patent invalidation propensity, while the plaintiff’s expectation of litigation and the market value of the patent promoted it. The degree of information asymmetry has no significant correlation with it. Finally, it concludes that China should ensure that patent holders realize their reasonably expected benefits in litigation, establish reasonable cost compensation or transfer rules for patent invalidation, and also focus on the effect of high-quality patent cultivation and promotion of patent technology transfer and commercialization to enhance or play the role of patent market value. The theoretical contributions of this study are as follows. First, we apply the transaction cost theory to the research on the patent invalidation propensity in patent infringement litigation, verify the theory’s validity in this situation, and broaden the application scenarios of the theory. Second, the influencing factors and mechanisms of patent invalidation propensity are discovered from the three dimensions of patent characteristics. Meanwhile, the patent invalidation request’s behavioural logic is clarified, which enriches the domestic empirical study referring to patent invalidation. Third, the results of this study also show that the information asymmetry in the context of China’s patent infringement litigation has not affected the propensity of patent invalidation, which is a supplement and an amendment to the existing literature. In terms of practical contribution, we believe that clarifying the influencing factors of invalidation propensity in patent infringement litigation can help increase the utilization rate of the patent invalidation system, ensure the function of modifying patent examination errors and achieve the goal of optimizing the patent quality in China.