The efforts to design-around Edison’s claims also resulted in patentable inventions that pioneered new technologies in their own right, later applied in technological fields other than electric lighting.Some design arounds Edison’s patent gave rise to new lighting technologies such as electromagnetic-induced lamps, gas-filled lamps, non-carbon filaments leading to the modern tungsten filaments, and the forerunners of modern fluorescent lamps.Unit lamp sales doubled as GE lost unit market share.A precipitous decline in unit price of electric incandescent lamps from about 60 cents to 20 cents, as market leader GE reduced its price 3 times.The number of active manufacturers nearly doubled.Patenting rate of non-infringing designs rose from an average of 3 patents per year prior to enforcement to 17 per year during the enforcement period. Patenting surge of non-infringing lamp technologies, designing around Edison’s patent claims.
(“GE”), did not license the patent and when it enforced the patent, the following occurred in the enforcement period: The Edison patent owner, General Electric Co. In a paper pulished in August 2021 in the Journal of Competition Law & Economics that my co-author John Howells and I authored, we provide a novel detailed empirical study of the extent and timing of designing around patent claims, as exhibited in the Edison patent case. Designing Around Patents is an Underappreciated Benefit of the Patent Systemĭesigning around patent claims is prevalent but not often appreciated as a means by which patents promote economic development through competition. When the Edison patent was enforced, competitors were able to use Edison’s basic teaching while circumventing the patent by designing around the patent claims to avoid infringement. Supreme Court, as it acknowledged the role of “the incremental innovator designing around the claims, yet seeking to capture as much as is permissible of the patented advance.” Warner-Jenkinson Co. How then, despite the enforcement actions, injunctions, and refusal to license, were the competitive market activities described in (1) – (5) above possible? The answer lies in “design around:” the important feature of our patent system recognized by the U.S. Edison did not invent the electric lamp his pioneering invention claimed in the `898 patent did, however, unlock the field of commercial electric lighting.Īfter 1882, all incandescent lamp manufacturers followed Edison’s teaching. With this pioneering recognition, Edison experimented with over 6,000 filament compositions, ultimately converging on the use of carbonized bamboo fibers that he patented in U.S. Edison was the first to recognize the commercial importance of illuminants made of extremely thin carbon filaments enclosed in near-perfect vacuum, resulting in over 1,000 hours of operation. Contrary to historical folklore, Edison did not invent the electric lamp-decades before him, others had produced electric incandescent lamps, but employing low resistance, thick carbon illuminants, which lasted only several hours of operation.
His patent covered the electric incandescent lamp with extremely thin carbon filament of high electrical resistance, enclosed in a single glass globe sealed under near-perfect vacuum, as described in U.S.
This indeed happened under our patent system-in the previously-unrecognized case of Thomas A. (5) the fundamental technology gains widespread use in consumer households and ushers-in the electrical revolution. (4) the patent holder loses market share down to less than 50% and (3) enforcement of the patent holder’s exclusive right fails to make it a “price maker” - it becomes a “price follower,” reducing its product prices three times as product unit prices in the market fall precipitously by two-thirds (2) total annual product unit sales in the market doubles (1) successful patent enforcement not only fails to deter market participants, but the number of active manufacturers of the product doubles What happens next during the patent enforcement period would defy all conventional anti-patent narratives: Commanding 50% market share in unit sales of the patented product, the patent holder prevails in patent infringement suits obtaining court injunctions against all major rivals and maintaining a strict no-licensing policy. Would you believe the following scenario could happen under our patent system? An inventor of a fundamental technology receives a patent less than three months after filing despite the public disclosure of the patent, industry contemporaries fail to appreciate the invention’s significance for nearly two years once appreciated, widespread adoption and infringement of the patent ensues.