Strategies Used by Patentees to Delay Patent Disclosure in Literature Searches and Measures for Counteracting Them

In the context of today’s knowledge-based economy, in which creation, distribution, use, and accumulation of information are the primary forces driving wealth and jobs, intellectual property rights represent an important arrangement between the inventor and the government through which the former is granted strong protections by the latter in exchange for “disclosure” to the general public upon expiration of the legally determined protection period. The ultimate goal of such an arrangement is to promote inventions, thereby supporting industrial progress. In accord with this, under the patent system, disclosure of the information related to the patented invention is the prerequisite for obtaining the exclusive right to a novel technology. However, using the loophole provided by the cost-intensive and time-consuming process of analyzing the exponentially increasing patent documentation required around the world, an increasing number of firms try to maintain a competitive advantage by drafting their patent documents in a manner allowing the delay of their actual public disclosure. The current study investigated actual cases of strategies for delaying public disclosure of patents used by some companies when drafting patent documents, and discusses possible measures for more efficient mining of patent literature and related institutional improvement to address this issue.