Patent Portfolio Theory

According to an August 2004 paper by R. Polk Wagner and Gideon Parchomovsky, the benefits of patent portfolios are so significant that firms' patenting decisions are essentially unrelated to the expected value of individual patents. Because patent portfolios simultaneously increase both the scale and the diversity of available marketplace protections for innovations, firms will typically seek to obtain a large quantity of related patents, rather than evaluating their actual worth. The result - which they see as widely-recognized in commercial circles - is that the modern patenting environment exhibits (and requires) a high-volume, portfolio-based approach that is at odds with scholars' traditional assumptions.

Click here for more about risk, return, and portfolio characteristics from William F. Sharpe's "Macro-Investment Analysis"