Alice in 2020: Most Operating Company Patents Withstood Eligibility Challenges Decided Last Year
February 3, 2021
RPX data reveal that the vast majority of patents litigated by operating companies survived patent eligibility challenges in 2020, with courts declining to invalidate 74% of such patents in Alice motions decided this past year. In contrast,...
Read full postIn 2020, Connected Cars Drove NPEs to the Automotive Space
January 27, 2021
A surge of NPE activity in the Automotive sector, first noted by RPX in May 2020, persisted through the second half of the year. With new entrants flocking to the scene, historically aggressive plaintiffs active in the space, and cars b...
Read full postWest Texas Was the Top Patent Venue in 2020—as Judge Albright Sparred with the Federal Circuit
January 20, 2021
In 2020, the Western District of Texas was the most popular venue for overall patent litigation (i.e., with no filter for plaintiff type) and for litigation filed by NPEs, also taking third place for operating company litigation. The Distri...
Read full postPatent Litigation Increased in 2020 Despite COVID-19 and Slight Q4 Dip, Driven by NPE Filings
January 14, 2021
The patent ecosystem proved quite resilient to COVID-19 in 2020, which ended with an increase in patent litigation compared to 2019 despite the pandemic—although filings declined slightly during the fourth quarter. In particular, Q4 2020 ...
Read full postBerkheimer Is a Less Effective Alice Defense in the Hands of an NPE
January 6, 2021
RPX’s latest quarterly report takes a deep dive into the ongoing impact of the Federal Circuit’s decisions in Berkheimer and Aatrix, which held that courts cannot grant early dismissal under Alice when a patent owner establishes a mater...
Read full postChinese Patent Validity Challenges Succeed About 60% of the Time
December 30, 2020
RPX’s China dataset covers approximately 25,000 invalidity cases spanning a decade, from 2010 to the present. These data reveal that the number of Chinese patent invalidity proceedings has increased about threefold in the last decade, goi...
Read full postFederal Circuit Appeals from District Court Settle Quickly
December 16, 2020
RPX data reveal that when Federal Circuit appeals of district court patent cases end in settlement, they do so fairly quickly. For appeals dismissed from 2014 through October 2020, the median time to dismissal is just 134 days for district ...
Read full postDamages in Chinese Patent Cases Are Quite Small Compared to Those in the US
December 9, 2020
The dynamics of Chinese patent litigation vary significantly from those in the US—and one key distinction involves damage awards, which tend to be much smaller than those seen in American patent suits. Although at least some damages have ...
Read full postFormer Operating Company Patents Have Been at Issue in the Majority of NPE Litigation
December 2, 2020
One of the most significant ongoing drivers of NPE litigation has been the assertion of operating company patents. As RPX has extensively reported, and as RPX’s data confirm, the acquisition of such assets by NPEs—either directly from t...
Read full postAutomotive, Medical, and Networking Litigation Increased Significantly in Q1-Q3 2020
November 25, 2020
RPX data show that NPE patent litigation hitting the Automotive market sector remains well above levels observed last year, having risen by 131% in Q1-Q3 2020 compared to the same period last year. Earlier this year, a number of notable pla...
Read full post