Complexity, court bias and litigant status: 'The determinants of investments in patent ligitation'
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Understanding the behavior of litigants in civil lawsuits is a key for understanding the litigation process in general. A hand-collected sample of US patent litigation cases is used to identify the determinants of the litigants' litigation investments, measured by the number of legal counsels employed. It turns out that the number of counsels employed is signicantly affected by patent, court and litigant characteristics. A plaintiff invests less the more the court is biased in his favor. Large firms and defendants with a large patent portfolio employ more counsels, whereas individual litigants employ less. Software patents are related to a lower investment by the plaintiffs. Surprisingly, none of the patent value indicators has a robust signicant effect on the number of counsels employed by the plaintiffs. These findings help not only to understand the cost drivers of litigation but have also important implications for the discussions on forum-shopping, software patents, and the role of the litigant status for litigation success. Steffen Juranek is an assistant professor at Norwegian School of Economics. His main research interests are in areas of Law and Economics, industrial organization and finansiel markets. |
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