2014 NPE Litigation: New and Smaller Targets

For several years now, RPX has been building an increasingly comprehensive and detailed database on patent litigation. We will be publishing our latest update soon, and this 2014 NPE Litigation Report—which builds on the data we published in our 2013 NPE Litigation Report and our 2012 NPE Activity Report—will continue to provide a uniquely clear and quantitative picture of NPE patent litigation.

The 2014 report will reveal several notable findings, including:

NPEs as litigation drivers

While the volume of NPE litigation fell in 2014, it remained the most common form of patent litigation overall. See Charts 1 and 2.

• NPEs accounted for 62% of all cases filed with 2,749 while operating companies accounted for 1,665 cases.
• NPEs accounted for 56% of total defendants added with 3,615 total defendants while 2,856 were added to operating company cases.

New targets

NPEs continued to expand to new targets in litigation.

• Last year, 1,078 companies were targeted for the first time as a defendant in an NPE patent infringement case.
• Overall, 3,767 unique defendants were added to patent infringement cases in 2014.
• Of these 2,069 unique defendants were added to NPE cases.

Smaller companies

Companies with less than $100 million in revenue accounted for over 60% of the unique NPE defendants added and more than 40% of total NPE defendants added. See Chart 3.

While the final numbers in the published RPX 2014 NPE Litigation Report may change slightly to accurately reflect year-end data still being collected, these new figures confirm that NPE litigation remains a compelling concern for operating companies. We welcome your comments and questions. Please e-mail reports@rpxcorp.com for further information about the RPX 2014 NPE Litigation Report.