NPE Litigation Targeting Financial Services Surged in Q1
April 21, 2021
A breakdown of NPE district court filing trends by market sector (comparing the number of defendants added in Q1 to the quarterly average for 2020) reveals a marked increase in litigation targeting certain industries in the first quarter. S...
Read full postQ1 2021 Saw More New Filings than Any First Quarter Since 2015 as NPE Activity Spiked
April 14, 2021
A 43.3% increase in patent litigation compared to the same period last year marked 2021’s first quarter, with 1,164 defendants added to patent assertion campaigns (compared to 812 in Q1 2020)—the highest first-quarter filing levels seen...
Read full postOperating Company Patent Sales and Recessions: Breaking Down Litigation by Divestment Time
March 31, 2021
One of the key drivers of NPE litigation in the past few years has been the divestment of patents from operating companies, and this trend is likely to accelerate as the economic effects of the COVID-19 recession ripple throughout the paten...
Read full postSemiconductor Patent Litigation Trends Upward as Top NPE Plaintiffs Acquire and Assert Chip Patents
March 24, 2021
RPX data show that patent litigation asserting semiconductor patents has increased gradually but steadily over the past few years. In particular, litigation involving chip patents dipped in 2017-2018 but swung back upward in 2019 and 2020. ...
Read full postWhat 15 Years of US Patent Litigation Data Reveal About the IP Market: An Overview
March 17, 2021
Patent litigation trends have been volatile over the last 15 years, often responding to legislative, administrative, and judicial changes. A disaggregation of this data reveals meaningful differences among plaintiff types and may provide va...
Read full postAlice Remains in Its Post-Berkheimer Narrowed State, as Stakeholders Push for Supreme Court to Revisit Section 101
March 10, 2021
RPX data show that the US Supreme Court’s Alice decision, once a key defensive tool for patent litigants, remains in a significantly narrowed state due to the Federal Circuit’s Berkheimer and Aatrix opinions. In those cases, the Federal...
Read full postPTAB Petitions Dip Due to Discretionary Denials, Prompting a Return to Reexamination
March 3, 2021
In the fourth quarter of 2020, 356 petitions for America Invents Act (AIA) review were filed with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), including 330 petitions for inter partes review (IPR) and 26 petitions for post-grant review (PGR). ...
Read full postOperating Company Divestments Fueled Patent Litigation in 2020
February 24, 2021
Patent marketplace activity in the fourth quarter of 2020 showed that the acquisition and assertion of operating company patents by NPEs remained a key driver of patent litigation. Indeed, RPX data on the origins of asserted patents reveal ...
Read full postOperating Company Litigation Held Steady in 2020 Despite COVID-19, but NPEs Pulled Ahead
February 17, 2021
RPX data show that operating companies filed about as much patent litigation in 2020 as they did the year before, despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This past year, operating companies added 1,387 defendants to patent campaigns, c...
Read full postAIA Review Institution Rates Went Down in 2020 as the PTAB Expanded Discretionary Denials
February 10, 2021
RPX data show that the institution rate for America Invents Act (AIA) review trials fell by about 2.2% year-over-year, dropping from 61% in 2019 to 58.9% in 2020. That decrease is at least partly attributable to the PTAB’s increasing exer...
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