Since 2011, several papers and articles have speculated about the motivations, activities, and possible anti‐competitive effects of hybrid patent assertion entities (PAEs) or, more pejoratively, “patent privateers.” Most prior work has assumed that privateers are essentially extorting money from firms by making weak infringement claims employing weak patents. Under a more classical law and economics approach, we would expect patent privateers to acquire valuable patents to reduce litigation risk and justify patent enforcement. However, to date, there has been no quantitative analysis on this form of patent holder to support or disprove either of these theoretical viewpoints. This article takes a first step toward filling that gap in the analysis by conducting an empirical assessment of patent lawsuits filed between 2010 and 2013. Although several studies have provided useful analysis on who litigates patents and which patents are more likely to be litigated, we add new variables and insights to the analysis. First, our dataset identifies the business models of the parties involved, including hybrid PAEs. Second, we include data on patent reassignments, which allows us to identify when a hybrid PAE takes (partial) possession of a patent. Third, for making comparisons between litigated and unlitigated patents, our dataset includes a set of unlitigated patents that match our litigated patent dataset on several key variables. In this work, we explore three interesting questions: (1) What patent characteristics predict a patent's acquisition by a hybrid PAE? (2) Do hybrid PAEs acquire patents that are more likely to be litigated? and (3) Does reassignment to a hybrid PAE affect the time when a patent is first asserted in litigation? We find that hybrid PAEs tend to acquire patents in the information technology, surgery, and medical instrument fields more often than patents in other technology areas. Hybrid PAEs also obtain relatively higher‐quality patents than average, but objective quality metrics generally are on par when compared to patents litigated by firms with other business models. Our analysis also suggests that hybrid PAEs prefer patents with a broader scope of protection. Reassigning a patent to a hybrid PAE is generally associated with higher odds that the patents will be litigated. Finally, patents held by hybrid PAEs at some point in their lifespan experience their first litigation later than those never held by a hybrid PAE. In short, our analysis suggests that patent privateers appear to be focused on improving the possibility of successful patent monetization by focusing on acquiring higher‐quality patents with a broader scope of protection, as value and scope are perceived by economists. This research is consistent with the law and economics theory that hybrid PAEs acquire valuable patents and not the extortion theory that they acquire weak patents.

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理解专利“私有”：定量评估

自2011年以来，有几篇论文和文章推测了混合专利主张实体（PAE），或者更贬义的是“专利拥有者”的动机，活动和可能的反竞争影响。多数先前的工作都假设，私有者实质上是通过利用弱专利来提出弱小侵权要求，从而从企业勒索金钱。在更经典的法律和经济学方法下，我们希望专利所有人获得有价值的专利，以降低诉讼风险并证明专利执法的合理性。但是，迄今为止，还没有关于这种形式的专利持有人的定量分析来支持或反驳这些理论观点。本文通过对2010年至2013年之间提交的专利诉讼进行实证评估，迈出了填补这一空白的第一步。尽管有几项研究提供了有关谁对专利进行诉讼以及哪些专利更有可能被诉讼的有用分析，但我们为分析增加了新的变量和见解。首先，我们的数据集确定涉及各方的业务模型，包括混合PAE。其次，我们包含有关专利重新分配的数据，这使我们能够确定混合型PAE何时（部分）拥有专利。第三，为了在诉讼专利和未诉讼专利之间进行比较，我们的数据集包括一组未诉讼专利，这些专利在几个关键变量上与我们的诉讼专利数据集相匹配。在这项工作中，我们探讨了三个有趣的问题：（1）哪些专利特征可以预测一项专利？被混合PAE收购？（2）混合型PAE是否获得了更有可能受到诉讼的专利？（3）重新分配给混合PAE是否会影响专利在诉讼中首次主张的时间？我们发现，混合型PAE往往比其他技术领域的专利更经常获得信息技术，手术和医疗器械领域的专利。混合型PAE的专利质量也高于平均水平，但客观质量指标通常与采用其他商业模式的公司提起的专利相比处于同等水平。我们的分析还表明，混合型PAE更喜欢具有更广泛保护范围的专利。将专利重新分配给混合型PAE通常会导致专利诉讼的可能性更高。最后，混合型PAE在其使用寿命中的某个时刻所拥有的专利要比混合型PAE从未拥有的专利晚。简而言之，我们的分析表明，专利经济学家似乎专注于通过获取具有更广保护范围的更高质量的专利来提高专利成功货币化的可能性，因为经济学家认为其价值和范围。该研究与混合PAE获得有价值的专利的法律和经济学理论相一致，而不是与它们获得弱专利的敲诈理论相一致。我们的分析表明，专利经济学家似乎专注于通过获取具有更广泛保护范围的更高质量的专利来提高专利成功货币化的可能性，因为经济学家认为其价值和范围。该研究与混合PAE获得有价值的专利的法律和经济学理论相一致，而不是与它们获得弱专利的敲诈理论相一致。我们的分析表明，专利经济学家似乎专注于通过获取具有更广泛保护范围的更高质量的专利来提高专利成功货币化的可能性，因为经济学家认为其价值和范围。该研究与混合PAE获得有价值的专利的法律和经济学理论相一致，而不是与它们获得弱专利的敲诈理论相一致。