Patent Litigation Doing Just Fine, Especially In Texas

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Patent Litigation Doing Just Fine, Especially In Texas


After several years of steady increase in the number of new patent lawsuits filed, 2014 saw a notable decline in the number of new patent suits from 6,082 in 2013 to 5,012 in 2014. Some, such as Gene Quinn of IP Watchdog, saw this 1,000–case decline as evidence that the patent reform enacted in 2011 and other factors, such as the Supreme Court’s 2014 Alice v. CLS Bank decision, were having the effect of depressing patent litigation in the United States, and argued against further patent reform in Congress based on this development.

Having just hit the halfway point of 2015, the 2014 decline in patent litigation is beginning to look less like a trend and more like an aberration. As reported in Ars Technica, Unified Patents has issued a study showing that 3,050 new patent lawsuits were filed in the first half of 2015, with 68% of them attributable to patent trolls (a/k/a non–practicing entities a/k/a patent assertion entities). At this rate, 2015 would see 6,100 new federal court lawsuits and nearly 2,000 filings in the Patent and Trademark Appeal Board (PTAB), returning to (if not surpassing) 2013’s record levels.

Also worth noting is the return to dominance of the Eastern District of Texas as the venue of choice for new patent infringement lawsuits. 1,389 new lawsuits were filed in east Texas in the first half of 2015. The next closest federal district court, the District of Delaware, saw only 249 new case filings. This finding is of interest because it was not long ago that the District of Delaware was on nearly equal footing with the Eastern District of Texas in new patent case filings, with both districts well ahead of the rest of the field.

It will be fascinating to see if 2015 continues to be a record–setting year for patent lawsuits, and if the Eastern District of Texas truly has reclaimed its status as the go–to district for patent litigation.

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