Patent assertion entities and patent ownership transparency: strategic recording of patent transactions at the USPTO

Many PAEs hide behind dozens of unknown subsidiaries or shell companies with obscure ownership. Meanwhile, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), like many other patent offices, does not impose a strict time period for recording the change of ownership of a patent, allowing the holder to gain an advantage by controlling the timing of its ownership disclosure. In this paper we analyze recording lags in patent transactions (defined as the time lag from the execution of the patent assignment to USPTO recording) and show that PAEs strategically notify the patent office of the transaction as a function of their litigation strategies. In particular, OLS estimates suggest that for every ten days that separate the date of the start of the litigation from the execution of the patent transaction, PAEs delay the recordation of the transaction by almost four days (while the lag is about two days when the assignee is a product company). Longer recording lags are especially,associated with transactions related to patents transferred to PAEs in the ICT sector, that are litigated in the District Court in the Eastern District of Texas and that are acquired by PAEs through unknown subsidiaries.