Bonum Certa Men Certa

Unified Patents: Patent Litigation in the US is Still Dominated by Patent Trolls That Create Nothing But Lawsuits

This is not innovation but parasitic taxation

IoT NPE litigation



Summary: Some complete/exhaustive statistics (not interpolated/extrapolated but limited to one area) from Unified Patents help demonstrate trends in patent litigation in the United States; it's clear that much work remains to be done by patent reformers

EVEN though it's Easter (so we've been writing less) the USPTO continues granting patents and lawsuits continue to be filed. On Wednesday/Thursday, for example, Unified Patents showed that patent litigation is dominated by patent trolls, at least when it comes to software patents 'dressed up' as "Internet of Things". There are plenty of figures in this analysis and we have reproduced only one (above) under Fair Use.

From the outline:

From 2012 to 2017, NPE litigation activity for Internet of Things (IoT) technologies remained consistently high (between 85% and 98% of all IoT litigation). After reaching a record number of new IoT litigations in 2016, new filings in 2017 returned to pre-2016 levels. While litigation involving most IoT technologies either decreased or saw marginal increases in 2017, the proporation of IoT litigation over Communication Protocols & Networking increased from 3% (2016) to 44% (2017).


Unified Patents' Robert Jain later (yesterday) added: "Whatever the cause, the volume of NPE-related filings [troll lawsuits] remains high as is seen in the figures below."

Patent litigation in Q1 2018 held steady with the number of new filings slightly exceeding the volume of cases seen in the second half of 2017. In recent years, the number of new filings has been highest in the first and second quarters which may indicate we will see fewer patent litigations in 2018. However, the uncertainty surrounding upcoming changes in patent law, such as the pending Oil States decision, may be in part responsible for these lower filing rates. Whatever the cause, the volume of NPE-related filings remains high as is seen in the figures below.


In relative terms, patent trolls are still a major problem. Sure, the overall number of patent lawsuits nosedived, but that did little to tackle patent trolls specifically and a lot of their nefarious activity goes on not inside the courtroom but outside the legal system. They bully and eventually extort companies, otherwise that ends up with lawsuits.

We are far from done reforming things; the software community should not assume that 35 U.S.C. €§101 changes have fixed everything. Much of the blackmail is extrajudicial in nature, which means that the views/interpretations of courts/PTAB never get factored in (or into calculations associated with the harm done by trolls).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
 
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October