Patent Law

A reader wrote that they would be interested in seeing updated information on the costs of patent infringement litigation presented in my July 1, 2008 post.  These costs were originally obtained from a Fox Rothschild presentation.  While a quick search uncovered numerous total cost estimates for patent litigation costs, I was unable to find a more recent, similar cost breakdown by trial task as found in the original presentation.  If you are aware of one, please share by offering a comment below.

I did run across an interesting presentation by Bart Showalter of Baker Botts, LLP from the January 25, 2008 AIPLA Mid-Winter Conference titled, "Cost of Patent Litigation."  In the presentation Mr. Showalter presents three sections: (1) Trends in Patent Litigation, (2) Calculating the Costs; and (3) Top 10 Budget Busters.  The Calculating Costs section includes the following highlights:

• The Cost of a Patent Case - A bar graph that shows the cost of litigating a case by size of ultimately awarded damages in the case for 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007:
• Cost of Patent Litigation by Location - Cost over the same four years for five different cities/states;
• Cost Profile of Patent Litigation - A line graph that shows the cost trend line through various stages of the case;
• A series of slides and tables that present the concept of a budget template for patent litigation costs.

See the full presentation here.  Much of the cost data from the presentation are derived from the AIPLA "Report of the Economic Survey" for  the years 2001 through 2007.  The 2009 AIPLA Report of the Economic Survey is available here to members.