Guerre Des Brevets (documents en anglais)

Intro :

A patent gives to the creator of an invention the sole right to make, use, and sell this invention for a set period of time. All the objects, the products we consume every day are creations from public or private work that have been patented.

Innovation is at the heart of our daily life and at the center of the economic development of the largest global companies but also SMEs.

Therefore, the success and sustainability of your business depend largely on your ability to imagine new products. That is why, whatever the nature of your creation, it deserves to be protected.

You create a strategic competitive advantage in an environment increasingly competitive and globalized. Moreover, a patent reinforces the value of your business, it additionally becomes an indicator of performance and an element of its intangible asset that can be valued and transmitted.

By filing your patent, you get a monopoly which operates a maximum of 20 years in France. You are the only one to be able to use it and you can prohibit any use, manufacture, import, of your invention made without your permission.

Today, as we noted earlier, innovation is one of the main assets of a company. You can prosecute those who illegally copy your invention. Therefore, the patent becomes a major issue for companies. It will define the structure of the sectors in which innovation is a major criterion of competition (high tech, automotive ...). The product of your competitor may become obsolete thanks to your innovation and he won’t have the ability to change the situation because of your patent.

Therefore, patents become a major weapon of competition in some sectors. Real war patent will then be put in place.

The next part will focus on the study of a concrete case of patent war.

(The number of patent applications, computer-related and otherwise, filed each year at the United States patent office has increased by more than 50 percent over the last decade to more than 540,000 in 2011. Google has received 2,700 patents since 2000, according to the patent analysis firm M-CAM. Microsoft has received 21,000.

In the last decade, the number of patent applications submitted by Apple each year has risen almost tenfold. The company has won ownership of pinching a screen to zoom in, of using magnets to affix a cover to a tablet computer and of the glass staircases in Apple stores. It has received more than 4,100 patents since 2000, according to M-CAM.

And as patent portfolios have expanded, so have pressures to use them against competitors. )

A. La création de monopole

A patent gives to its owner a operating monopoly o the use of the patented object for a limited time and for a particular territory. The patent allows preventing a third party of manufacture, sale, use or distributing the invention in that territory without your permission. In return for this monopoly, the patentee agrees that his invention is made public and falls into the public domain at the end of the period of protection.

Today patents are rather used to create monopolies. For example, in the high technology sector, the patent becomes a weapon of competition. If you find a substantial innovation and filed a patent, your competitors are doomed to not use it or use it at with some risks (they take the risk of being attacked by yourself). The purpose of the patent is not then disseminates innovation but to facilitate the creation of monopolies in the medium / long term because innovation can be protected for 20 years before being opened to the public.

In the high-tech sector, this period is even more incongruous that innovations need to be regular. Wait 20 years to use an innovation is just not possible in this area, hence the need for the illegal copying. While this does not justify illegal activities, companies of high technology have no choice but to copy their competitors. Indeed, it is far too dangerous for them to take the risk of having their products made obsolete by the emergence of a new protected innovation. Their survival is then in the copy, especially when the patent concerns a major innovation considered as essential by the consumers.

B. Un conflit sans fin

Firstly, it’s important to notice that the different actors of the patent wars in the high-tech sector are huge.

( It was one of seven major smartphone and patent-related lawsuits Apple has initiated since 2006. The suits have focused on two large companies, HTC and Samsung, both Google partners,

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