NPE Litigation in the Communications Industry

We recently researched patent litigation statistics for 10 of the largest telecommunications companies in the United States using Lexis Nexis Courtlink. (Data as of 2/23/09 – see table below).

From 2003 to 2008, patent litigation for these 10 U.S. telecommunications companies grew 329%. During this same period, total patent litigation cases in the U.S. increased only 1.6% according to data published by PatentFreedom (Intellectual Asset Managment, October/November 2008, “A New Tool for a New Kind of Patent Adversary”). During the same period, NPE patent litigation against these top U.S. telecommunications companies grew 389% while NPE litigation across all industries increased 92% (PatentFreedom, Intellectual Asset Managment). This data shows that while the amount of patent litigation in the U.S. slightly increased, the composition of the plaintiffs filing the patent infringement law suits has become increasingly represented by NPEs, especially within particular industries and sectors.

The data we recovered from Lexis Nexis Courtlink also shows that NPE litigation represents more than 76% of all patent infringement cases filed against these companies. By comparison, NPEs represented only 12% of all U.S. patent litigation cases across all industries during those same years (PatentFreedom, Intellectual Asset Management).

*Note: Patent litigation totals for a given year have been edited to avoid double counting patent lawsuits involving more than one of the companies analyzed in the study.