NPE Patent Litigation Up by 10% in 2021

NPEs closed out 2021 with 2,338 defendants added to patent litigation campaigns—an increase of 9.5% from the 2020 total of 2,135 defendants.

As in years past, an outsized chunk of that litigation was filed by affiliates of IP Edge LLC, a monetization firm that has filed more litigation than any patent plaintiff since 2010. IP Edge—which has historically asserted its patents through numerous, short-lived district court suits, rarely engaging in substantive litigation—added 615 defendants in 2021, or about 26.3% of all NPE litigation filed during the year.

Excluding IP Edge’s activity, NPE litigation was up by a still-significant 9.8%—making it the busiest year for NPEs since 2016.

See RPX’s fourth-quarter report for more on IP Edge, and for further analysis of other trends impacting patent litigation and the patent marketplace.