RPX’s primary objective since the company was founded has been to help make the patent licensing ecosystem more rational and efficient. Our core defensive acquisition network does this by reducing members’ financial exposure to litigation-based licensing. Since 2013, we have implemented a parallel program designed to both enhance efficiency and to increase public confidence in the patent system by deterring sub-standard patent assertions and invalidating low-quality patents.
RPX’s Patent Quality Initiative comprises two central activities: prior art searches and validity challenges, utilizing our patent expertise and analysis.
Prior Art Search Program
RPX is especially well equipped to conduct effective prior art searches. We have a deep team of subject matter experts with broad technical and patent expertise and the industry’s most exhaustive database of patent intelligence. We monitor new NPE assertions to identify viable candidates for prior art searching. RPX in-house analysts develop search strategies, conduct searches, and review search results, occasionally engaging third-party subject matter experts and/or search firms where warranted. Published reports are carefully annotated, and our analysts are available to members for follow-on discussion and research.
Beyond the clear benefits of expert analysis, RPX reports are timely (often immediately available for companies targeted after the initial assertion) and cost-effective, allowing multiple companies to benefit from a single, high quality search. At no additional cost to members, this centralized approach can eliminate duplicative expenses of each defendant performing its own prior art search or provide a second search to those defendants that may still decide to perform their own search.
By the Numbers
- 2,250+ patents with prior art search reports available
- 785+ prior art search reports published
- 685+ PTAB petitions citing prior art previously identified in RPX prior art search reports
Validity Challenges
Not all patents are invalid. Many are directed to real inventions that drive our innovation economy. RPX, through its core defensive acquisition network, can and does achieve rational and efficient transactions on such patents.
Unfortunately, some patents are invalid. RPX files validity challenges, such as inter partes reviews (IPRs) against such patents in a wide array of technology areas. We seek to invalidate low-quality patents and to stop and deter infringement lawsuits that we believe are frivolous, are wasteful, and potentially undermine public confidence in the patent system. The logic for doing so is simple. If we can invalidate patents that do not claim real inventions, we can reduce the number of nuisance cases litigated in overburdened court systems, reduce the unnecessary legal fees and settlements that nuisance assertions and litigations generate every year, and restore public confidence in the patent system by demonstrating that the system can self-correct.
By the Numbers
- 60 IPR petitions filed on 38 patents in 28 campaigns with 21 IPR petitions co-filed with another co-filer
- 96% merits-based institution rate on challenged patents
- 87% merits-based cancellation rate at final written decision on challenged patents
Our patent quality team meets periodically to identify and assess possible targets for our IPR petitions. Unless we co-file with another petitioner, we act alone, fund the petitions unilaterally, and expressly discourage and disregard input from members and other third parties.
Data drives our patent quality initiatives, with our talented engineers and data scientists spending a lot of time making data useful for our members. One such initiative is the easily accessible PTAB analytics tool found on RPX Empower, our patent market intelligence platform.
For more detail on our patent quality initiatives please contact us.