IP Non-Practicing Entity (NPE) Litigation Dataset
The Stanford Non-Practicing Entity (NPE) Litigation Dataset (the Dataset) is the first ever publicly available database to track comprehensively how practicing entities, non-practicing entities (NPEs), and patent assertion entities (PAEs) claim patent ownership rights in litigation. NPEs do not make products or offer services while PAEs—often referred to as “patent trolls”—employ patents primarily to obtain license fees, rather than support the transfer or commercialization of technology. Critics have come to believe that steadily increasing PAE enforcement activity, including litigation, is harming innovation and serving as a tax on producers and consumers.
While there has been lots of concern about PAEs, until now there hasn't been a lot of data easily accessible. Our mission was to create a comprehensive dataset for use in both research and policy. Complicated data, lots of users with different levels of permissions, and visualizations for different audiences? Enter (Decoupled) Drupal!
Using Drupal as a framework, we were able to leverage content types to create complex data sets intuitively, without coding SQL. We then optimized the RA dashboard and flow to allow them to easily input data.
This data could then be displayed in various formats and visualizations using Views, D3 library module, and plot.ly integrations: making it accessible for both scholars and policy makers.
We've presented on this project at the Codex Futurelaw conference and at Vanderbilt Law School (April 13, 2018).
In the end, we're proud to empower researchers to observe, and change, the world.