2015 Annual Patent Dispute Report

Unified tracks all U.S. patent disputes, categorizing each by entity type and technology sector, and provides statistics, analytics, and regular reports on the state of patent disputes. Unified is also the only independent entity that has challenged patent aggregators—entities that repeatedly purchase and seek to monetize patents.

In that vein, we are happy to announce the publication of our 2015 Annual Patent Dispute Report.

The full report can be found here: http://unifiedpatents.com/2015-year-end-report/

Some conclusions:

  1. 2015 saw the highest number of annual patent disputes (litigation + PTAB)
  2. 2015 saw the second highest number of district court patent litigations in history and a 14% increase from 2014,
  3. Almost 2/3s (64%) of litigation involved NPEs concerning high-tech patents (i.e. patents covering technologies related to computing or consumer electronics) that were asserted against both high-tech and non-tech companies

  4. 92% of all disputes concerning high-tech products involved non-practicing entities (NPEs).
  5. 94% of all NPE disputes concerning high-tech products involved PAEs (Patent Assertion Entities).
 

PAEs are special legal vehicles whose purpose is to monetize patents they did not file but rather purchased. Our analysis, provided above, demonstrates the vast majority of disputes related to high-tech products are PAEs. In fact, patent litigation as a whole would decrease 56% (3,242 cases) if PAEs stopped asserting against high-tech technologies.

A list of the top 5 2015 litigants is listed below. They were all PAEs. A top 10 list is in the report linked here.

Patent Owner 2015 Cases
eDekka 101
Data Carriers 85
Shipping & Transit LLC 67
Cryptopeak Solutions LLC 66
Wetro Lan LLC 56

A list of the top 5 2015 defendants is listed below. They were all high-tech companies.

Defendant 2015 Cases
Samsung 72
Apple 57
AT&T 42
LG Electronics 40
Hewlett-Packard 37

The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), in a 2015 annual survey-based report, calculates an average NPE litigation will cost $1.75 million from filing to completion (including litigation and settlement costs). Based on those averages, PAEs cost high-tech operating companies roughly $5.67 billion in 2015 alone.

For further information or questions feel free to contact us as we continue to add analytics based on interest.

For the full 2015 Report please go here:
http://unifiedpatents.com/2015-year-end-report/