특허 소송보험은 특허분쟁으로 인한 경영리스크를 완화시킬 수 있다는 측면에서 최근 그 역할이 강조되고 있다. 그러나 아직 특허 분쟁리스크에 대한 체계적인 통계 정보가 부족하여 국내 소송보험시장에서는 높은 정보비대칭성으로 인한 시장실패가 존재한다. 본 연구는 특허소송보험의 적정요율 산출을 위해 2000~2015년 기간 동안 심판이 청구된 7,551건의 특허데이터를 활용하여 특허분쟁에 영향을 미치는 요인을 분석하고, 이를 토대로 특허 분쟁리스크 예측 모델을 제시하였다.
분석결과, 특허보유기업의 유형(개인, 중소기업, 중견 및 대기업, 공공 등), 특허의 특성(공동출원 및 소유권 이전 여부, 패밀리 국가 수 등), 산업특성(성장성, 수익성), 기업 특성(재무지표, 특허포트폴리오 특성)에 따라 개별특허의 분쟁위험이 결정되는 것으로 나타났다. 분석 결과에 기반한 분쟁리스크 예측모델의 정확성은 83.3%(전체특허), 95.6%(기업특허)로 높게 나타나 특허 소송보험 시장에서 보험사와 기업 간 정보비대칭성을 완화하는데 기여할 수 있을 것으로 기대된다.
atent litigation insurance is expected to play an important role in decreasing management risks on patent disputes. However there is a lack of the systematic statistical information on the patent dispute risks. These high asymmetric informations causes some market failures in the litigation insurance market. To decrease high asymmetric information between firms and insurance companies, this study developed forecasting model for patent dispute risk through examining determinant factors in patent dispute between firms using 7,551 patents under trial for invalidation trial and trial to conform scope of patent right during 2000~2015.
The empirical results of this study show that the risk of patent disputes is determined by the types of applicants (individuals, small or large companies, public sector, etc.), characteristics of patents (the number of families, changes in patent ownership, etc.), industries and companies (financial and technologies).
Regarding to the types of applicants, patents of individuals have higher risk of patent disputes than those of other types of applicants - small and medium entrepreneurs, oversea companies, universities and public institutions. It means that individuals, small and medium entrepreneurs are more likely to be the target of patent challenges for their lack of defense capability or week intensity of their patents.
This study also shows that the smaller number of IPC codes (narrow scope of technological field), larger number of family patents, co-application, transfer of patent ownership increase the risk of patent disputes. It means that the higher economic value of patents is related to the higher risk of patent dispute.
For the industrial factors, higher market growth and profitability of industries have negative effect on the patent dispute risk. It means that in saturated and matured market with low profitability, firms are more likely to compete each other and to challenge other patents. This result is consistent with previous studies that unintended infringements causing patent dispute are increased in matured industries.
In the firm level, small firms with high profitability and growth rate have higher risk of patent disputes. It means those firms can be regarded as new competitors to established companies, thus they are more likely to be the target of patent challenges to deter market entry. For the factor of patent portfolio, larger scope of firm’s technological field, the average age of firm’s patents, average number of patent claims have negatively related to the risk of patent disputes. It means that firm’s technological capability lower the risk of patent dispute.
This study suggests forecasting model of patent disputes based on the empirical results. The overall accuracy of the forecasting model are 83.3% (whole patents) and 96.5% (companies' patents). To develop the forecasting model for patent dispute risk, this study used the patent sample under trial for invalidation trial and trial to conform scope of patent right. In a further study, it is needed to improve forecasting model using the patent litigation sample.