특허확보 및 활용 패턴 분석을 통한 비실시기업의 분류 - BM 구성요소 중심으로 -

A non-practicing entity (NPE) is a patent holder who does not manufacture anything covered by his or her own patents, or has no intention to practice the patented technology. Recently with the increasing importance of intellectual property (IP), NPEs have attracted great attention both from practice and academia. Particularly, if we understand business models (BMs) of NPEs, it will be helpful to protect NPEs from the risk of infringement, and furthermore to establish IP-related strategies in manufacturing companies. However, most of the existing studies on NPEs took qualitative approaches to investigate business models. Only few adopted quantitative approaches enabling us to examine the reality of NPEs especially at a time when their BMs are diversified. Therefore, this study aims to empirically analyze the pattern of the patent acquisition and usage of NPEs, and to suggest the types of their BMs observed in practice. For this purpose, we defined the BM components for NPEs, investigated each of NPEs based on the components, and finally classified them into five groups, which were suggested as a new taxonomy of BMs for NPEs. This is one of the earliest attempts to empirically analyze the characteristics of NPEs and thus is expected to contribute to the understanding of NPEs.