AIA Trial Institution Rates Leveled Out in 2021 Amid Continued Debate over NHK-Fintiv
March 10, 2022
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial in 61% of the America Invents Act (AIA) review petitions addressed in the fourth quarter of 2021, bringing the year’s institution rate to 58.7%—slightly higher than 2020’s 58.2...
Read full postNPE Litigation Ticked Up Last Quarter as Operating Company Activity Dipped Further
March 2, 2022
NPEs added 551 defendants to patent litigation campaigns in Q4 2021—up slightly from the same quarter last year though down by around 8% compared to Q3 and beating the trailing fourth-quarter 2018-2020 average by 16.1%. Litigation from fi...
Read full postANDA Litigation Remained Clustered in Historic Hotspots Last Year Despite Narrowed Venue Options
February 23, 2022
In 2021, the vast majority of patent litigation targeting generic drugmakers—i.e., cases alleging infringement through the filing of Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs)—was filed in Delaware and New Jersey, historically the hotspo...
Read full postWest Texas’s Judge Albright Remains the Nation’s Most Active Patent Judge
February 16, 2022
The top judge for patent litigation in both 2021 and Q4 was District Judge Alan D. Albright, who has played a key role in the Western District of Texas’s rise to the top of the venue charts over the past several years. In 2021, 19% of all...
Read full postIP Edge, 2021’s Top Plaintiff, Has a Long and Litigious History
February 9, 2022
RPX’s Q4 in Review detailed how NPE litigation increased by around 10% in 2021, both with and without the activity of one particularly litigious NPE: the patent monetization firm IP Edge LLC. Entities controlled by IP Edge have collective...
Read full postNPE Litigation Targeting Financial Services Doubled in 2021
February 2, 2022
As recently reported by RPX in its Q4 in Review, NPE litigation targeting the Financial Services sector rose during 2021, with double the number of defendants added to litigation compared to the same period in 2020. Forty-three of those def...
Read full postAs ANDA Litigation Hits an Eleven-Year Low, Other Operating Company Filings Have Leveled Out
January 26, 2022
Operating companies added 1,179 defendants to patent litigation campaigns in 2021, a 7.9% decrease from the prior year—continuing a general downward trend that began around 2010. However, these data are influenced somewhat by the inclusio...
Read full postReexam Filings Up by 51%, Likely Due to NHK-Fintiv Rule
January 19, 2022
Kathi Vidal now appears likely to be confirmed as USPTO director following the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote to send her nomination to the full Senate, potentially capping off more than a year during which the agency has lacked a perm...
Read full postNPE Patent Litigation Up by 10% in 2021
January 12, 2022
NPEs closed out 2021 with 2,338 defendants added to patent litigation campaigns—an increase of 9.5% from the 2020 total of 2,135 defendants. As in years past, an outsized chunk of that litigation was filed by affiliates of IP Edge LLC, a ...
Read full postDistrict Courts Tackle Alice Factual Disputes More Frequently at Rule 12
December 29, 2021
The Supreme Court’s Alice decision once provided a key offramp for defendants hoping to avoid lengthy litigation, particularly trial, by challenging patent eligibility at the outset. However, the Federal Circuit’s 2018 Berkheimer and Aa...
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