Lex Machina Q4 2017 End of the Year Litigation Update
In the final quarter of 2017, a total of 981 patent cases were filed in U.S. District Courts, a 1.3% decrease over the previous quarter’s total of 994 cases. Cases filed in the calendar year 2017 (4,057 cases) represent a decline of 10.3% over 2016 (with 4,529 cases). Despite the decline, Figure 2 shows that 2017 continues the pattern of relatively consistent monthly totals that has persisted since the dramatic spike in 2015 (caused by the end of Form 18).
Lex Machina Launches Legal Analytics for Product Liability Litigation
Lex Machina is pleased to announce the launch of our module for Product Liability litigation. This launch more than doubles the number of cases in the Lex Machina system, and brings legal analytics to one of the largest practice areas in the U.S. District Courts. Practitioners can analyze the nearly 500,000 cases pending since 2009 to see how judges, parties, or law firms have behaved in litigation. This data can not only help in-house lawyers identify winning outside counsel or help a law firm pitch it’s experience, but can also help lawyers on both sides make better strategic and tactical [...]
Patent Litigation Trends in the Three Months after T.C. Heartland
This blog post focuses specifically on patent litigation trends; for a broader discussion of other litigation trends in Q3, see our update here. On May 22, 2017, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in T.C. Heartland, holding unanimously that, under 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b) (the statute governing venue in patent suits), a domestic corporation “resides” only in its state of incorporation. Since that landmark decision, patent case filings trends have responded dramatically: the number of cases filed in the Eastern District of Texas has significantly declined and been overtaken by the number of cases filed in the District of Delaware. [...]
Lex Machina Q3 2017 Litigation Update
For a more in-depth consideration of patent litigation trends around the Supreme Court’s landmark T.C. Heartland ruling, see this companion post. 995 patent cases were filed in the third quarter of 2017, a 12.3% decrease from the number of cases filed in last quarter. A drop from the second to third quarter has occurred in each of the past 4 years. Relative to the number of cases filed in 2016 through the third quarter, filings in 2017 are down 8.4%.
Lex Machina Launches Legal Analytics for Bankruptcy Appeals in District Court
Lex Machina is pleased to announce the launch of our offering for Bankruptcy Appeals in District Court. With this launch, practitioners can, for the first time ever, get hard quantitative data on how parties, law firms, and judges perform on bankruptcy appeals. Practitioners, especially bankruptcy court specialists, facing an unfamiliar district judge in an appeal can research the prior experience of the judge, seeing what issues they have encountered in past cases, and whether they’ve upheld the Bankruptcy court on those issues. Companies can find counsel who have a winning record on the issues that matter most, as well [...]
2017 Second Quarter Litigation Update
1,138 patent cases were filed in the second quarter of 2017, a 18% increase over number of cases filed in the first quarter of 2017. A similar increase from the first to second quarter has happened in each of the previous 4 years. Although the number of cases filed in the first quarter of 2017 was one of the lowest in the last 5 years, the first half of 2017 only trails 2016’s first half by 7%.
Lex Machina Launches Legal Analytics for Employment Litigation
As the next step in bringing Legal Analytics to more areas of the law, Lex Machina has expanded our coverage of employment cases pending January 1, 2009 through the present. Our employment module offers the same ease-of-use and intuitiveness as our other practice areas, but introduces new tags, findings, remedies and damages specific to employment law. Discrimination, Retaliation, Harassment Lex Machina tags employment cases by the nature of the claims asserted, resulting in three (overlapping) categories: discrimination, retaliation, and harassment/ hostile work environment. Discrimination cases involve claims under federal statutes that prohibit adverse employment actions against members of a protected [...]
Lex Machina Launches Legal Analytics for Commercial Litigation
Lex Machina is excited to add over 60,000 cases to our Legal Analytics platform with a new module for commercial litigation. Commercial litigation is the business mainstay of many firms, a concern for nearly any corporation, and a big step for Lex Machina towards making Legal Analytics available across the law. This blog post takes a preliminary look at these cases, and begins by examining the broad overlap of commercial litigation with other practice areas. Next, we look at how commercial litigation is spread across the districts around the country, and why no single district has more than 10% of [...]