SETTLEMENT OF PATENT LITIGATION AND DISPUTES

Improving Decisions and Agreements to Settle and License

 

Early Commentary

 

This is a very sophisticated book about a set of very challenging and very important subjects.   John Schlicher’s illuminating analyses and comprehensive coverage of the dynamics of settlement in patent litigation are built on a unique blend of more than three decades of experience in practice in the field with a scholar’s mastery of relevant economic theory and social science literature. 

Don’t let the sometimes intimidating appearances of the formulae and graphics that Mr. Schlicher's work includes deprive you of the rich rewards that this book offers to a wide range of readers.  The book identifies and tracks the economic implications of  a huge range of factors and circumstantial variables that lawyers, business executives, and mediators need to take into account if they are to make reliably-based decisions about whether and how to settle patent litigation.  Among many other purposes, litigators and their clients can use this book to construct comprehensive lists of matters to consider and alternative scenarios to explore when making settlement decisions -- substantially reducing the risk that their analyses will fail to take into account any matters of real economic consequence.

One of Mr. Schlicher’s most valuable contributions consists of teaching us how to locate the range of possible terms of settlement that deliver net value to both parties.  By helping parties locate such zones of net value, good mediators and lawyers can provide clients with both the information and incentives they need to feel centered in their settlement decisions -- and to reduce the risk of unnecessary settlement failure.

This book also presents, in compact form, information that lawyers and mediators can use to educate clients about what really happens in our patent litigation system.  There is a powerful ‘sociology’ of patent litigation -- a sociology that has remained constant for decades -- that clients who are not repeat players are not likely to understand.  Mr. Schlicher's book provides lawyers and mediators with a wealth of information about what really happens to cases that enter the court system -- information they can use to sophisticate their clients' perspectives and to increase their clients’ comfort with decisions not to push the race all the way through to the finish line.

In sum, Mr. Schlicher’s book provides extremely valuable tools and important informational resources for anyone who might be involved in any role in patent litigation.

 

Hon. Wayne D. Brazil, Berkeley, California

 

Professor, University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall).  Former Magistrate Judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of California; author, Effective Approaches to Settlement, a Handbook for Lawyers and Judges (Prentice Hall Law & Business 1988).

 

 

 

 

JOHN W. SCHLICHER

PATENTS, PATENT LITIGATION, PATENT DISPUTE RESOLUTION AND

SETTLEMENT, LICENSING, ANTITRUST, LAW AND ECONOMICS