Patent Law Practice Center

Patent Litigation Strategies for Retailers Based Upon the PWC Patent Litigation Study

R. David Donoghue, Partner at Holland & Knight and Practice Center Contributor, passed along this post he wrote for his Retail Patent Litigation blog that discusses PWC’s 2011 Patent Litigation Study.

I [recently] wrote about some key implications of PWC’s excellent 2011 patent litigation study.  The study is so dense that it deserves more discussion.  Here are several of the key takeaways from the study.

• Big Dollars for Trolls.  Troll damages awards were nearly double those of practicing entities received by practicing entities.
• NPE’s Are Not All Equal.  Looking at all non-practicing entities, universities and non-profits are more successful than trolls, but their median damages awards are considerably lower.
• Trolls Wither on the Papers.  Trolls and practicing plaintiffs are equally successful at trial, but practicing entities are much more successful winning on summary judgment.  (more…)

Patent Trolls Cost Society $500 Billion Dollars, But What Does it Mean to You?

R. David Donoghue, Partner at Holland & Knight and Practice Center Contributor, passed along this post he wrote for his Retail Patent Litigation blog that discusses the outrageous cost of patent troll litigation and what it means for retailers.

Three Boston University professors – James Bessen, Jennifer Ford and Michael Meurer — are writing a provocative law review article using empirical data to quantify the cost of patent trolls. The cost of patent trolls is clear to every retailer that I speak with, but the results of the article are still shocking:

[Patent trolls] are associated with half a trillion dollars of lost wealth to defendants from 1990 through 2010.

Id. At 2.   $500,000,000,000 in lost wealth over twenty years, but it is actually worse than it sounds.  The losses are growing; an average of $80 Billion was lost per year over the last four years.  Almost two-thirds of the $500 Billion were lost in the last four years.  Some will no doubt argue that the study overstates the problem, but the authors make a compelling case that it is a levelheaded assessment of the cost of patent troll litigation.  They focus the study upon the impact of troll litigation upon a public company’s share price and find that, controlling for market fluctuations and other anomalies, stock prices take a significant and lasting hit when a troll suit is filed against a company. (more…)

Intellectual Ventures Goes on the Offensive

Written by Brandon Baum,  of Baum Legal and Practice Center Contributor.

Intellectual Ventures (IV) is what is often referred to derisively as a “patent troll.” It is a non-practicing entity that buys patents in order to monetize them, whether through licensing or litigation. But entities like IV take the view that they are providing a valuable service — they provide inventors with easy access to the economic incentive that fuels invention. In other words, they lubricate the Constitutional mandate “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts” by creating a ready market for inventions.

IV’s recent patent complaint filed in Delaware makes this point. IV avers as follows:

(more…)