Germany a hotspot for NPE litigation, claims report
Germany is the preferred country for non-practising entities (NPE) litigating in the EU, according to a report from legal services company Darts-ip.
Released on Monday, February 19, the report noted that during the 2007 to 2017 period, approximately one in every five infringement actions in Germany was initiated by NPEs.
Germany’s bifurcated system, where infringement and invalidity actions are independently ruled on in different courts, and a relatively high infringement win rate for NPEs when compared with other major EU jurisdictions, may be contributing factors to the number of actions, said Darts-ip.
“Between 2007 and 2017, the average annual growth rate of actions related to NPEs registered in the Darts-ip database was 19%,” said the report.
There has been a “dramatic increase” in NPE litigation in the last five years, primarily in the information and communication technologies arena.
The legal services company noted that the steeper increase could be linked to recent legal changes in the US which may have resulted in a less appealing litigation framework for NPEs there.
In 2014, the number of cases spiked in the EU, hitting 146.
The same year marked the first decline in patent litigation cases in the US since 2009. The full effects of the America Invents Act, which was enacted in 2011, were in place in 2014, and the US Supreme Court ruled on Alice v CLS Bank.
Darts-ip added that the five most active NPE companies operating in the EU are based in the US and they account for 60% of NPE-related litigation in the EU.
The report is available here.
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