Topic：The Private Costs of Patent Litigation
Lecturer：James Bessen, School of Law, Boston University
Time：2010.11.12，Friday 15:00-17:00 p.m.
Location：New Main Building A 1028
Host Lecturer：Prof. Chen Xiangdong
Abstract：
This research estimates the total cost of patent litigation to alleged infringers. A large sample of stock market event studies around the date of lawsuit filings for US public firms from 1984-99 is used. The research finds that the total costs of litigation are much greater than legal fees and costs are large even for lawsuits that settle. Lawsuits cost alleged infringers about $28.7 million ($92) in the mean and $2.9 million in the median. Moreover, infringement risk rose sharply during the late 1990s to over 14% of R&D spending. Small firms have lower risk relative to R&D.
Lecturer：
James Bessen is recognized as an innovator in the electronic publishing industry, having developed one of the first commercially-successful desktop publishing programs. As an economics researcher, a former software developer and CEO, he brings a unique perspective to the study of innovation.
Bessen wrote the first WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) PC publishing software in 1983 and founded a company, Bestinfo, in 1984 to market desktop publishing solutions to commercial publishers. Over the next few years, Bestinfo developed the first system to support PC publishing networks and the first single-source system for commercial-quality page makeup and color imaging. Over 1,000 commercial publishers purchased Bestinfo systems ranging from the Sears Catalogue to TV Guide. In 1986 Bestinfo received funding from Sevin Rosen Venture Capital and in 1993 it was acquired by Intergraph..
Bessen is currently Lecturer in Law at Boston University School of Law where he does research on the economics of technological innovation, including patents and Free/Open Source Software. His research on software patents with Eric Maskin (Nobel Laureate in Economics) and Robert Hunt has been influential in European policy deliberations and recent US Supreme Court decisions. He is the author (along with Michael J. Meurer) of Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk (Princeton 2008).
School of Economics & Management
SEM Postgraduate Association
2010-11-09
