HOUSTON - In spite of the pandemic, 2020 was apparently a good year for patent litigators, with a new report showing both damages and lawsuits trending upward.
Lex Machina, a LexisNexis legal analytics company, today released its annual Patent Litigation Report, which looks at trends in federal court as well as the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
"For some metrics, we can clearly see the effects of the pandemic, but they aren't as prevalent as originally predicted a year ago," said Geneva Clark, author of the report.
"Actually looking at the data, and being able to parse it as it applies to a specific use case, enables practitioners to see how court activity has changed — not only because of the impact of the pandemic, but also as patent strategy evolves in the wake of several important Supreme Court decisions."
Once known as the home of the “Rocket Docket,” the Eastern District of Texas experienced a slight spike in patent cases in 2020 (395) – an increase of 63 cases from the prior year, according to the report.
However, the Western District of Texas saw the most patent cases overall in 2020 with 857, a good number of which were heard in Judge Alan Albright’s court.
“Judge Albright took over the top spot in 2020 as the most active judge in patent litigation,” the report states. “In the last three years, his cases increased from only 28 patent cases in 2018 to 793 cases last year. He heard 19.5 percent of all patent cases in 2020.
“Judge Albright's local rules for patent litigation postpone patent eligibility in most cases to summary judgment or claim construction, as well as support a fast-moving docket.”
Judge Rodney Gilstrap was the second most active judge and one of three judges from the Eastern District of Texas to make the list.
According to the report, plaintiffs are likely continuing to choose Texas courts due to both the judges’ patent experience and the growing presence of tech companies in the state.
Despite the pandemic, damages were awarded in 52 cases and a record $4.7 billion in damages were awarded – a huge jump from last year’s total of $1.6 billion.
The most active defendants were technology companies, with Google topping the list for cases filed in 2020.
WSOU Investments and Uniloc, both high-volume plaintiffs, each brought more than 10 cases against Google in 2020, the report states.
Rabicoff Law filed the most cases in 2020 with 356 cases, 72 percent of which had high-volume plaintiffs. Fish & Richardson appeared most often on behalf of defendants with 227 cases.