The patentpocalypse is here. Or, to be more accurate, it’s (mostly) in the US.
Take a look at this great little graphic from the WSJ Law blog:
People often forget that patents by their nature are limited to individual jurisdictions. A US patent has no force in the UK, for example, and although companies routinely file patent applications covering the same invention in multiple jurisdictions, because those jurisdictions will all have different processes and rules as to patentability, there is no guarantee that the patent will be issued in all jurisdictions.
There are some striking observations here. * The total number of patent litigations filed increased about 300% between 1990 and 2002, but has been nearly constant for the rest of this decade. (Many others have shown this previously. See, e.g. Shrestha, 2010) * The number of cases with more than one defendant followed a similar trend (data not shown). * The number of named defendants increased nearly 600% between 1990 and 2010.
TiVo’s change in horses leads to termination of patent re-examination; TiVo shares on the rise after favourable USPTO re-exam decision (Patents Post-Grant) (IAM)