Inventor Disruption in the Wake of Patent Litigation

Prior research on inventor collaboration and their mobility has emphasized how disruptive events such as technological acquisitions or the death of collaborators can impact inventors. However, the impact of adverse events like patent litigation has largely been ignored. It is likely that being in a firm that is embroiled in litigation imposes substantial reputational and opportunity costs to the inventor and affects knowledge creation activities. We fill this gap by first examining the impact of patent litigation on inventors’ mobility between firms. We suggest that the prospects of sued inventors to move to rival firms are damaged as subsequent inventions are scrutinized for possible use of litigated technology. Additionally, we examine the impact of formation of collaborative relationships between sued inventors and inventors that they are collaborating with for the first time, as well as the collaborative relationships between sued inventors and inventors that were known to the sued inventor prior to the litigation. Specifically, we suggest that patent litigation increases the cost of collaboration with sued inventors and heterogeneously impacts the formation of subsequent relationships with new and previous collaborators within the firm.