The End of Collaborative Innovation: Is the Erosion of Patent Rights Threatening Open Innovation?

• Author: Marc Ehrlich - Richard Ludwin
• Position: Marc Ehrlich is senior vice president of patent strategy for TiVo Corp. Richard Ludwin is an associate general counsel at IBM. They can be reached, respectively, at marc.ehrlich@tivo.com and ludwin@us.ibm.com.
• Pages: 47-50

Published in Landslide® magazine, Volume 11, Number 1, a publication of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law (ABA-IPL), ©2018 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.

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These are heady times for some intellectual property (IP) advo-

cates in technology and academia. A coalition of like-minded

parties has leveraged the misdeeds of certain nonpracticing enti-

ties (pejoratively referred to as patent trolls) to successfully

bring about a signicant erosion in the strength of U.S. patents.

Many of the voices in this part of the IP community argue that

a broken U.S. patent system threatens open intercompany col-

laborative innovation, the engine that has generated the dizzying panoply of

technological innovations we have seen in the last few decades.1

Are they right? Does collaboration run counter to patent protection? The

answer is an unequivocal no. In fact, they have it backwards. In the current

environment of diminished patent strength where efcient infringement has

become common and patents are often ignored, we face the most signicant

threat to the future of open innovation we have yet confronted.2 Unless policy-

makers heed the warning signs, we could see the United States cede innovation

leadership to countries ready to learn from our past and avoid our current mis-

taken path. In fact, there are those who maintain that we are already too late.3

The End of

Collaborative

Innovation

Is the Erosion

of Patent Rights

Threatening Open

Innovation?

By Marc Ehrlich and Richard Ludwin

Marc Ehrlich is senior vice president of patent strategy for TiVo Corp. Richard

Ludwin is an associate general counsel at IBM. They can be reached, respectively,

at marc.ehrlich@tivo.com and ludwin@us.ibm.com.

Photo: Anthony Nuccio/iStockPhoto