利用專利分析研究北美地區智慧型手機企業間各種智慧財產權關係

Abstract

本論文檢視北美地區智慧型手機產業中企業專利資產與專利策略之間的關係。本文所稱的專利策略包括:專利侵權訴訟、專利單向授權、專利交叉授權、與專利購買策略。使用專利4階IPC代碼取得企業的核心技術領域。在這些核心技術領域中比較雙方企業的專利數與平均專利引證數以決定哪一個企業具有技術上的競爭優勢。研究結果顯示在專利數量以及質量上具有絕對優勢的企業通常會採取專利訴訟策略以阻擋對方企業進入市場以獲得得到較高的市佔率。相反地，當企業的專利資產較為稀少時，通常需要經由外部取得專利以保護其產品。專利單向授權策略是對公司擁有巨額研發投資下，活化其無形資產的一個好例子。因為企業通常可以經由專利授權活動獲得權利金收入。而當雙方公司在對方的核心技術領域中具有優異的專利佈局時，此時會提供企業雙方一個很好的誘因採取專利交叉授權策略，並且得到一個雙贏的狀態。

This thesis examined the relationships between corporation patent assets and four patent strategies - patent infringement lawsuit, patent unilateral licensing, patent cross license and patent purchase - in the North America region. Utilizing 4-digit IPC code of the patent is to extract the core technology areas of the smartphone firm. The comparison of the patent counts with average patent citations in the both smartphone firms’ core technology fields can determine which smartphone firm has competitive advantage in these core technology areas. The results showed that smartphone firms with abundant patent asset in quantity and quality usually take patent infringement lawsuit strategy to block rivals outside the market and to obtain more market share. On the contrary, smartphone firms with scarce patent asset usually need to acquire external patents for the purpose of protecting their products. Patent unilateral licensing strategy, in the case of smartphone firms with huge R&D investments, plays a significant role in activating intangible intellectual asset, since smartphone firms can earn loyalty via unilateral patent license activity. On the other hand, in cases where one of any two smartphone firms possesses predominant patents, whatever in quantity or quality, in the other’s core technology fields, the thesis reveals empirical outcome that it would take patent cross license strategy so as to obtain a win-win situation.