In US Patent Cases, Reaching an Outcome on the Merits Is a Lengthy Proposition

RPX data on US patent litigation outcomes show that just 3% of patent cases are adjudicated on the merits of the underlying claims of patent infringement. Unsurprisingly, such lawsuits also tend to last a lot longer than those decided on non-merits issues: the median merits-based time to dismissal is 915 days from case filing, or around 2.5 years, while other outcomes such as likely settlement and voluntary or contested dismissals occur much more quickly, about a year on median. Of course, the longer that a patent case lasts, legal fees are all but certain to rise.

A further breakdown of merits-based outcomes, shown below, indicates that by far the most common such avenue for deciding a case is summary judgment, accounting for 69% of dismissals on the merits. The median time to summary judgment is 834 days, or just under 2.3 years. Bench trials and jury trials account for 14% and 13% of dismissals, respectively, with median times to dismissal of 968 days (2.7 years) and 1,164 days (3.2 years). Even less common are judgments as a matter of law (JMOL), which account for just 4% of dismissals on the merits and take the longest of all (slightly longer than dismissals following jury trials).