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Study: Apportioned Damages Would Decrease Patent Value Between $35-85B

By Peter Zura

Yesterday a group of U.S. manufacturers released research entitled ?The Likely Adverse Effects of an Apportionment-Centric System of Patent Damages.? The research was conducted by Scott Shane, Ph.D., Professor of Economics at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

The study sought to answer the threshold question of whether and how much average damage awards would be reduced by apportionment legislation. The following effects of apportionment legislation were estimated:

1. Reduction in U.S. patent value of between $34.4 billion and $85.3 billion.

2. Reduction in value of U.S. public companies of between $38.4 billion and $225.4 billion.

3. Reduction in R&D of between $33.9 billion and $66 billion per year.

4. Between 51,000 and 298,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs put at risk.

5. Industries employing fewer people favored over those employing more people.

The paper is provided by the Manufacturing Alliance on Patent Policy (link), and a PDF copy of the study may be downloaded here.

Full post as published by Two-Seventy-One Patent Blog on January 15, 2009 (boomark / email).