Defensive Publishing - An Empirical Study

35 Pages Posted: 20 May 2007 Last revised: 26 May 2008

See all articles by Joachim Henkel

Joachim Henkel

TUM School of Management - Technical University of Munich (TUM)

Stefanie M. Lernbecher (neé Pangerl)

Technische Universität München (TUM) - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration; HYVE - the innovation company

Date Written: May 2008

Abstract

Defensive Publishing denotes publication of an invention with the purpose of creating prior art, and thus preventing patents being granted on this invention. Although widely employed, it has hardly been investigated empirically. Our study is based on 56 in-depth interviews, among others with most industrial firms in the German DAX 30 stock index. We find that 70 percent of the companies in our sample use defensive publications, for up to one third of their inventions. Interestingly, we find that the patent system itself is frequently used for defensive publishing. Our findings also challenge contributions connecting defensive publishing to patent races.

Keywords: Defensive publication, intellectual property, freedom to operate, patents

JEL Classification: O32, O34, M21

Suggested Citation

Henkel, Joachim and Lernbecher (neé Pangerl), Stefanie M., Defensive Publishing - An Empirical Study (May 2008). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=981444 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.981444

Joachim Henkel

TUM School of Management - Technical University of Munich (TUM) ( email )

Arcisstr. 21
Munich, D-80333
Germany

Stefanie M. Lernbecher (neé Pangerl) (Contact Author)

Technische Universität München (TUM) - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration ( email )

Arcisstr. 21
Munich, D-80290
Germany

HYVE - the innovation company ( email )

Schellingstr. 45
Munich, 80799
Germany

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