PTAB Petitions Dip Due to Discretionary Denials, Prompting a Return to Reexamination
March 3, 2021
In the fourth quarter of 2020, 356 petitions for America Invents Act (AIA) review were filed with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), including 330 petitions for inter partes review (IPR) and 26 petitions for post-grant review (PGR). ...
Read full postOperating Company Divestments Fueled Patent Litigation in 2020
February 24, 2021
Patent marketplace activity in the fourth quarter of 2020 showed that the acquisition and assertion of operating company patents by NPEs remained a key driver of patent litigation. Indeed, RPX data on the origins of asserted patents reveal ...
Read full postOperating Company Litigation Held Steady in 2020 Despite COVID-19, but NPEs Pulled Ahead
February 17, 2021
RPX data show that operating companies filed about as much patent litigation in 2020 as they did the year before, despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This past year, operating companies added 1,387 defendants to patent campaigns, c...
Read full postAIA Review Institution Rates Went Down in 2020 as the PTAB Expanded Discretionary Denials
February 10, 2021
RPX data show that the institution rate for America Invents Act (AIA) review trials fell by about 2.2% year-over-year, dropping from 61% in 2019 to 58.9% in 2020. That decrease is at least partly attributable to the PTAB’s increasing exer...
Read full postAlice in 2020: Most Operating Company Patents Withstood Eligibility Challenges Decided Last Year
February 3, 2021
RPX data reveal that the vast majority of patents litigated by operating companies survived patent eligibility challenges in 2020, with courts declining to invalidate 74% of such patents in Alice motions decided this past year. In contrast,...
Read full postIn 2020, Connected Cars Drove NPEs to the Automotive Space
January 27, 2021
A surge of NPE activity in the Automotive sector, first noted by RPX in May 2020, persisted through the second half of the year. With new entrants flocking to the scene, historically aggressive plaintiffs active in the space, and cars b...
Read full postWest Texas Was the Top Patent Venue in 2020—as Judge Albright Sparred with the Federal Circuit
January 20, 2021
In 2020, the Western District of Texas was the most popular venue for overall patent litigation (i.e., with no filter for plaintiff type) and for litigation filed by NPEs, also taking third place for operating company litigation. The Distri...
Read full postPatent Litigation Increased in 2020 Despite COVID-19 and Slight Q4 Dip, Driven by NPE Filings
January 14, 2021
The patent ecosystem proved quite resilient to COVID-19 in 2020, which ended with an increase in patent litigation compared to 2019 despite the pandemic—although filings declined slightly during the fourth quarter. In particular, Q4 2020 ...
Read full postBerkheimer Is a Less Effective Alice Defense in the Hands of an NPE
January 6, 2021
RPX’s latest quarterly report takes a deep dive into the ongoing impact of the Federal Circuit’s decisions in Berkheimer and Aatrix, which held that courts cannot grant early dismissal under Alice when a patent owner establishes a mater...
Read full postChinese Patent Validity Challenges Succeed About 60% of the Time
December 30, 2020
RPX’s China dataset covers approximately 25,000 invalidity cases spanning a decade, from 2010 to the present. These data reveal that the number of Chinese patent invalidity proceedings has increased about threefold in the last decade, goi...
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