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Data do not support an explosive growth of patent litigation

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

Peter Zura at the 271Blog comments on recent data on IP litigation from the Judicial Business of the U.S. Courts:

Claims of a patent litigation "explosion" continue to be unsupported by the latest data. Going back to 2004, the number of patent cases filed per year break down this way:

2004 - 3,075 patent cases
2005 - 2,720 patent cases
2006 - 2,830 patent cases
2007 - 2,896 patent cases
2008 - 2,909 patent cases

Considering that 9,573 IP lawsuits were filed in 2008, patent litigation made up only 30% of all IP litigation. Further, as 223,093 civil cases were filed in 2008, patent litigation made up only 1.3% of all litigation in the U.S.

The "urban legend" about an explosive growth of patent litigation evokes the previous "urban legend" that the USPTO might be allowing 97% of all patent applications. That wasn't true either, but the "urban legend" made its way to the US Supreme Court within a brief.

Full post as published by IPBiz on March 19, 2009 (boomark / email).