Remedies against patent infringement and their effects on innovation and patenting activities

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26380314
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Economic policy
• Research Institution: Kogakuin University
• Principal Investigator: Yasaki Yoshihito 工学院大学, 情報学部(情報工学部), 准教授 (10345150)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 特許権侵害 / 損害賠償請求権 / 逸失利益基準 / 侵害者利益基準 / イノベーション

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Patents provide incentives for R&D, which may leads to innovation. Rival firms may infringe the original innovator's patents. The court imposes injunctions and damages as remedies against patent infringement. Injunctions stop rivals from further infringement, while damages are paid by the imitator to the original innovator. Under Japan’s Patent Law, damages can take the form of lost profit, unjust enrichment, or reasonable royalty. I developed a simple duopoly model with an innovator and a potential imitator to analyze R&D incentives under lost profit and unjust enrichment regimes.
Under lost profit, strengthening patent protection increases the innovator’s profit and encourages R&D investment when the cost of R&D is low, but discourages R&D when the cost of R&D is high.
When the cost of R&D is very high, unjust enrichment results in excessive patent protection. When the cost of R&D is neither very high nor very low, lost profit provides insufficient patent protection.

Free Research Field

産業組織論