But is that all there is to it? Does the number of patents a company files tell the whole story? For example, are all patents equal, or are some better than others?
The answer is that, in reality, patents definitely are not all created equal. Some are definitely better than others (I've seen a few shockers over the years). Now I should say that even the most skilled and creative patent attorney cannot (or should not be able to) make an inherently un-patentable invention patentable. On the other hand, a patent application which is not prepared and processed well (or in the most appropriate and advantageous way for its owner) can ruin the valuable protection that might otherwise have been available, or at least this may result in protection which is less commercially useful than it might have been.
Okay, so what makes a patent "good" or "bad"? Unfortunately there is no simple answer to this. And the reason why there is no simple answer is largely because people and companies file patent applications for all sorts of different reasons. In other words, the outcome sought to be achieved by filing and obtaining a patent is different for different companies. This means that what constitutes a "good" patent will also be different for different companies.
Having said this, I would argue that one thing remains the same in all cases - a "good" patent is one that serves the purpose, or achieves the commercial outcome, for which it was intended. I often tell people that a patent is a business asset, and like other business assets, it needs to be used to its best commercial advantage. It's like if you have, say, a manufacturing business. You might invest in an expensive new piece of manufacturing equipment, like a new or upgraded machine. But if you don't make good use of that new machine, or of it's actually not right for its intended purpose, then it may well have been a poor use of money (i.e. it's not a "good" asset for your business). On the other hand, if you use that new machine to improve the speed or efficiency or capacity of your production, or indeed in some other way that gives you an edge over your competitors, then this benefit may vastly outweigh the cost of the machine (and hence the machine is a "good" asset).
The same is true for patents. What this means is that, even a patent that might have been a "good" patent (i.e. if it were to be used well) may in fact turn out to be not so good if it's not used in the best or most commercially advantageous way.
Anyway, to further illustrate the point that what makes a patent "good" is different for different companies, it's useful to compare different industries.
Take the pharmaceutical industry as a first example. In that industry, large drug companies typically own one patent (or maybe a small number of patents) for each of their "blockbuster" drugs. The way they use these patents is basically like a "big stick". That is, they hold the patents so that they can sue any competitor who tries to produce a competing drug (or at least a drug that falls within the scope of their patent). So, basically, drug companies use patents to protect their exclusivity, by aggressively suing other competitors if necessary. This is perfectly understandable, and big drug companies make no apologies for it. Basically, this is a crucial aspect of their overall business model. To explain - drug companies spend years and invest billions in researching and developing new drugs. If they were not then able to protect their exclusivity and obtain a return on their investment (by maintaining high prices during the period of exclusivity provided by their patents) their business model simply wouldn't be profitable. So they wouldn't undertake R&D into new drugs, and we wouldn't see any new drugs (or other new advancements in medical technology for that matter).
However, the way patents are used in other industries can be very different. Take the mobile telecommunications industry, for example. In that industry, the way new technology is developed and implemented is very different, and as a result the way patents are generally used in that industry is also very different.
To explain further - it is probably correct to say that in the pharmaceutical industry generally, new products (drugs) are developed (and R&D is conducted) in an isolated or "standalone" fashion very often. In other words, a single company can conducts everything from the initial R&D, right up to the final commercialisation of their drug, all by themselves without regard to what others are doing. So the product (i.e. the drug) and its development generally aren't inherently dependent on what other companies are doing in the same or related areas at the time.
In contrast, in the mobile telecommunications industry, almost all new technologies rely heavily on the requirement for interoperability. That is, one company generally cannot simply develop a new piece of, say, mobile phone technology without also giving careful consideration to what other companies are doing, because that new mobile phone technology needs to be able to operate with (i.e. "talk to") e.g. the transmitters, network infrastructure, etc, produced by other companies, and it also needs to operate using the signalling protocols, etc, used in the industry. So, for example, it would be no good for Apple to devise a new piece of technology and build this into their iPhone, if that new piece of technology can't be used with (i.e. it can't "talk to") phones produced by, say, Samsung, or if that new technology isn't usable anyway because it's not compatible with the transmitters used by telecommunication network operators, etc.
So, in the telecommunications industry, new technologies are usually (and necessarily) chosen for commercial adoption in a more collaborative way. Now, this doesn't mean that individual companies in this space are not conducting their own in-house R&D and promoting their own innovations. They definitely are. In fact, what usually happens is that, several companies may each come up with their own proposed new technology aimed at achieving a certain desired outcome, and the different companies' technologies may all work in quite different ways. However, usually only one out of those several proposed technologies can actually become commercialised (i.e. adopted and implemented in the real world). So, what often happens is that they effectively all get together (usually in the forum of technical standards development committees) to discuss and agree on which one of the different proposed technologies is the best, and this is the one that will be chosen for real-world implementation. In practice, this agreed-upon technology will be the one that is then incorporated into the "standard" which the whole industry then adopts and conforms to (i.e. future devices all incorporate that chosen "standardised" technology).
Now, the point is that the particular technology that is chosen for incorporation in the standard will be one that has been proposed (and promoted) by one of the companies – let's say Samsung - and usually that company (Samsung) will own one or more patents related to that technology. However, in some other area, it may be a particular new technology developed and patented by a different company - say Ericsson – that gets adopted and standardised.
So, in order for telecommunications systems overall, and the products used them, to be interoperable (i.e. in order for everything in the system to work together) the overall system generally utilises technologies developed and patented by a number of different companies. And because the patents covering the various technologies are owned by various different companies, all of the different companies must generally cross license each other, so that they are all able to produce functional products (i.e. products that are able to "talk to each other", etc).
Importantly, vast sums of money are exchanged in these cross licensing arrangements. So, from the point of view of an individual company, the more of their patented technologies that they can get incorporated into the standard (and hence commercialised in the real world) the more money they can derive in licensing royalties. Thus, in the telecommunications area, this is largely why there is an incentive for companies to seek and obtain patents. What this means is that, in the telecommunications industry (with a couple of notable exceptions) patents are rarely used as a "big stick" for suing competitors. Instead, the commercial driver is to amass as many patented technologies as possible, and to have as many of those as possible adopted in the standards, all for the purpose of deriving licensing revenue.
Okay, but what does this have to do with the question of whether a patent is a "good" patent? Well, consider the different purposes for which patents are used in the different industries discussed above. In the pharmaceutical industry, patents are used as a "big stick". Therefore, in the pharmaceutical industry, a "good" patent may be one which has the broadest possible scope. This is because, in the pharmaceutical industry, competitors may go to great lengths to try and produce competing drugs which do much the same thing as the patented drug, but with e.g. small chemical differences to try and make the competing drug fall outside the scope of the patent. So, for pharmaceutical companies, a "good" patent may be one which covers as many of these possible differences or variations as possible, so that the patent can be used to stop this kind of activity by competitors.
On the other hand, as I said above, in the telecommunications industry, individual patents are rarely used as a "big stick" for the purpose of litigation. Rather, the purpose of patents is more often to cover whatever the very specific technological implementation is that is chosen (or which a company is seeking to have chosen) for implementation in (and as) the standard, for the purpose of deriving licensing revenue. As a result, the scope of a patent in this field often doesn't need to be as broad. In fact, in the telecommunications space, a patent may be a "good" one even if it only covers the very specific or exact implementation of the technology that has been (or will be) adopted in the standard. In other words, the patent need not necessarily (or always) cover possible variations or alternatives that might achieve the same outcome. The reason why a patent may still be "good" even if it doesn't cover possible alternatives is because, in the telecommunications space, everyone (i.e. all companies) must make products that conform to the standard by incorporating in their products the exact implementation of the technology that is specified in the standard - and remember the patent does cover this. Products that do not conform to the standard simply will not work. That is, they will not be able to "talk to" all of the other products that do conform to the standard.
So, in summary, the question of what constitutes a "good" patent is really in the eye of the beholder. The underlying commercial requirements or objectives for the patent shape and guide what is needed to make the patent "good".
Perhaps the take-home from all this is that, if your business is seeking (or considering seeking) a patent, a few key issues or questions to keep in mind, both at the beginning when the patent is initially being prepared, and also at all times throughout the subsequent patent processing stages, are:
"What is the commercial objective in seeking this patent?" and
"How do I intend to use this patent in my business?"
Keeping these questions in mind will help to ensure that the decisions you make, at every step in the process, should lead to a patent that is as "good" as possible..
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