Rivalry, Legal Capacity, and Foreign Firm Participation in ITC Patent Disputes

The Moynihan Institute’s Study of Global Politics series presents Jieun Lee from the University at Buffalo - SUNY.

Paper Abstract:

Firms from geopolitical rivals lose patent disputes at the United States International Trade Commission far more often than firms from allied states. We show that this gap arises before adjudication. Across 4,104 respondents in investigations terminated between 2009 and 2021, Chinese firms lose 38.9% of the time, but 34.3 of those percentage points are defaults: firms that never appeared. Once they appear, rival-state firms fare no worse than others.

We argue that contesting requires legal capacity a firm must hold before a complaint arrives, and that rivalry raises the cost of defending while lowering the value of winning. Prior political engagement with the commission predicts appearance, but engagement during a proceeding, when lobbying could reach only the discretionary decisions around the merits, adds nothing. Political engagement here marks capacity, not persuasion. Geopolitical rivalry shapes outcomes through procedures, not just policy.

Jieun Lee is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University at Buffalo. She studies international political economy with a focus on how firms influence international relations. Her recent work examines how foreign firms represent their interests in the U.S. political system. She also studies the politics of trade and foreign investment including how multinational corporations promote and defend economic globalization. Her other line of work is on international trade law with a focus on U.S.-China relations. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a joint Ph.D. in public policy and political science.