Operating Company Filings Held Steady in Q3 as Anti-Counterfeit Litigation Saw Even More Activity

Operating companies added 287 defendants to patent litigation campaigns in Q3 2021, broadly in line (+1.5%) with the trailing Q3 average for the past three years. Third-quarter operating company filings also increased by 9.5% over the same quarter last year but were down 16.3% from Q2.

Overall, Q3 patent litigation was up across all categories compared to the year ago period—bolstered by a substantial uptick in NPE litigation—and beat the Q3 average for the past three years, although it slowed a bit compared to Q2 2021. In the third quarter, 882 defendants were added to patent litigation campaigns, roughly 15% higher than the prior-year period and the three-year average.

Note that the data above exclude litigation filed by a small group of design and utility patent owners targeting copycats and counterfeiters selling products online—significant levels of which continue to be filed, including 354 defendants added in Q3 alone. As noted in previous quarterly reports, RPX generally excludes such cases from analyses of district court litigation because they tend not to follow the same dynamic as what most companies would consider a typical patent suit: such lawsuits sometimes name hundreds of defendant entities, many of which may be online storefronts for the same ultimate parent; plaintiffs primarily seek injunctive relief, rather than damages; and their cases often end in default judgments.

This category of litigation is shown in grey below to illustrate its magnitude and volatility.

See RPX’s third-quarter review for more on this and other trends impacting patent litigation and the patent marketplace.