Top ten US patent litigators “trolls”, report finds
In its annual report that reviews patent litigation trends in the US, legal analytics company Lex Machina revealed that in 2013, the ten most prolific filers of patent infringement cases in the US were non-practising entities (NPEs), sometimes known as “patent trolls”.
Published today (May 13), Lex Machina’s 2013 Patent Litigation Year in Review draws together data on US district courts and judges, law firms, parties, patents, case merits decisions, damages awards and US International Trade Commission (ITC) investigations and Administrative Law judges.
It reported that NPEs Melvino/ArrivalStar, Wyncomm and Thermolife each filed more than 100 cases in 2013.
However, seven of the ten plaintiffs with the most patents asserted in open cases are operating companies, and include Ericsson, optical cable maker Finisar, Motorola Mobility, Apple, Philips and Pfizer.
The ten most sued companies were all in the technology sector. Apple had the most cases launched against it, at 59, while Amazon, as defendant in 50 cases, was the second most sued company. Other companies in the defendant top ten included Samsung, Microsoft and Google.
The number of new patent cases filed in US district courts increased by 12.4 percent year-on-year, with 6,092 cases filed in 2013 from 5,418 in 2012. The total number of patent cases filed has more than doubled since 2008.
A total of 4,917 patents were at issue in all cases filed in 2013. 3,032 of these patents, or 61 percent, had not been litigated in at least a decade.
Most new cases were filed at the Eastern District of Texas, at 1,495, which reported a 20 percent increase on the previous year. The District of Delaware saw the second highest number of cases being brought, at 1,336 – a 33 percent increase on 2012.
The Central District of California posted the largest decrease in new cases filed, at 399 cases, or 20 percent fewer than in 2012.
Trials were held in 128 patent cases in 2013, which included 52 bench trials and 63 jury trials. Of all the districts, cases went to trial fastest in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, at a median time of 255 days.
By contrast, the slowest district was the Western District of New York, which had a median time of 2,423 days, or just over six and a half years.
The report also noted another increase in the number of merit cases, where district courts invalidate patents for lack of patentable subject matter, from two cases in 2010 to 14 in 2013.
Patent disputes brought to the ITC were said to have stabilised at 41 in 2013, just one fewer than in 2012.
Monsanto received the largest damages reward, at $1 billion from DuPont for infringing a patent covering genetically modified seeds.
Lex Machina’s report is available here.
