Patent Litigation in Germany

Patent Litigation in Germany

Client/Allowance

Fritz Thyssen Stiftung

Period: 01.04.2010 – 30.09.2012

The main goal of the project is the analysis of the German enforcement system of intellectual property rights using detailed data of enforcement suits handled at the German District Courts in Mannheim, Düsseldorf and Munich. One issue to be addressed in the project will be the incidence and outcome of IPR litigation suits. Secondly the duration and cost figures will be investigated and in respect to their impact on the efficiency. Additionally, the issue of duplicated litigation suits in more than one European country can be identified and estimated in its dimension. Therefore a large set of party information, information about the infringement action and facts about the course of the case will be taken into account.Results of the analysis are also going to shed some light on the course of the case as well as to reveal systematic patterns of litigation regarding certain technologies. Additionally, the project will identify potential correlations among the characteristics of the agents involved in litigation suits in Germany and the course of the cases they are involved in and their resolution. Hypothesis will be developed by implementing the models of negotiations under the conditions of asymmetric and incomplete information. Using traditional econometric techniques and the adjusting existing models is aimed to produce stable and reliable empirical results.The project contributes to the political debate of creating a new unified European IPR system with a practicable enforcement system applying the results of the analysis of the German enforcement system. A harmonized procedure should circumvent incentives of forum shopping and duplication of suits as well as the filing of cheap litigation cases.

Project members

Katrin Cremers

Katrin Cremers

Project Coordinator

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Dietmar Harhoff

Dietmar Harhoff

Research Associate

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