Some Good News on Patents

Further evidence of a dramatic slowdown in patent litigation activity in the United States is provided today in data published by Unified Patents, the entity whose business is based on helping SMEs fight frivolous patent suits. According to the research, which covers the third quarter of this year (June to September),  there was a 23% drop in the number of suits filed compared to the second quarter, and a 27% year-on-year reduction.

The findings come just weeks after data released by Lex Machina showed that there had been a 40% fall in patent suits in September 2014 as compared to the same month in the previous year. Commenting to IAM on the reasons for the decline, Lex Machina founder Professor Mark Lemley claimed that much of it could be attributed to the Supreme Court’s Alice v CLS decision. The Alice judgment was handed down towards the end of June.

More here.

Alice has made a difference as well as the cheaper post-grant challenge procedure in the AIA. Once the first software patents make it through, however, there will be an uptick as people learn the new system. Still this is good news especially for software patents but we have a way to go on the larger issue of IP, including copyright.

Here is the updated “Tabarrok curve“.

Tabarrok Curve

Comments

Comments for this post are closed