U.S. patent litigation analysis of the DNA seqencing industry

本研究從DNA定序產業之美國專利侵權訴訟，了解該產業中廠商的訴訟行為與系爭專利之特性。本研究由商用資料庫取得DNA定序產業之美國專利侵權訴訟共100件及其系爭專利共168件，分析訴訟資訊、訴訟主體資訊(原告及被告)和訴訟客體資訊(系爭專利和被控侵權產品)。本研究也由次級資料中歸類各廠商在DNA定序產業鏈中之位置和其各世代產品技術之發展。由訴訟主體資訊可得知在DNA定序產業中，主要發起美國專利侵權訴訟之廠商為中游的儀器平台廠商，被控專利侵權的廠商也多為具有相同商業模式在同樣產業鏈位置上的競爭者。而由訴訟客體資訊中，除了以產品技術結構定位系爭專利之保護標的和技術特徵外，也從專利的被引證數、專利家族大小、所有權移轉次數、國際分類號分佈等指標比較系爭專利和一組同樣專利權人在相同時間間隔內申請的同技術領域之對照組專利，可發現系爭專利和對照組專利相比屬於較有價值的專利。The present research analyzes the U.S. patent infringement cases of the DNA sequencing industry to understand the features of patent-in-suit and litigation behaviors in said industry. The present research obtains 100 U.S. patent infringement cases and 168 patent-in-suit from commercial databases. The litigation history, parties in the litigation (plaintiff and defendant), subject matter of the litigation (the patent-in-suit and the infringing products) are analyzed. The present research identifies the position of different corporate entities in the DNA sequencing industry chain and the development of each generations of DNA sequencing technology. By analyzing the parties in the litigation, the present research identifies that most of the plaintiffs are corporate entities developing sequencing instrument, and most of the defendants are competitiors having the same business model with the plaintiffs. By analyzing subject matter of the litigation, the present research identifies the technical features and subject matter of the patent-in-suit. The present research compares the citation, patent family size, number of ownership transfer and IPC distribution between the patent-in-suit and a control group patents of the same technical field within the same time frame. The patent-in-suit is more valuable than the control group patents