At last, some data on patent litigation. This is from a presentation by Peter Detkin. He contests the claims that patent litigation is out of control and rising faster than other forms of litigation. Among other things, he notes that patent litigation is less common than trademark or copyright suits, and that it comprises only a tiny percentage of overall suits. He also notes that patent lawsuits per issued patent are declining. Also, what I think is more interesting, his data notes that the settlement rates for patent suits, although they rose steadily in the late 1990's, are now holding steady and are lower than for several other types of suits. He also notes that "trolls" are only about 2 percent of patent litigation.

It's not surprising that patent suits per issued patent are declining, given the flood of purely defensive patents (that is, there are more, way more patents, than before, many of which are not enforced). Nor am I surprised that the numbers of patent suits are not showing any alarming trends. I would be much more interested in a larger data set on settlements. And in measuring the percentage of suits by "trolls," does that include cases that settle or that license without ever a case being filed? I rather doubt it, and I'm not surprised that it would be hard to get those figures. But I think they would be quite interesting. After all, the concern is *not* that companies with dubious patents are suing the pants off everybody, but rather that they find they don't have to, because it is less expensive to settle than to litigate.

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 4:56 PM | Patents

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