Lex Machina’s Second Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) Report Reveals New Insights about Trial Resolutions, Technology Center Trials, Administrative Patent Judges, Law Firms, Parties and More
Among the top findings: Fish & Richardson is the most experienced firm in representing petitioners; top petitioners include Apple, Samsung, Google and Microsoft; communications and semiconductors are the most common areas of focus in PTO Technology Center trials
Menlo Park, CA, June 15, 2017 – Lex Machina, a LexisNexis company and creator of the award-winning Legal Analytics® platform, today released findings from its second Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) Report. The report analyzes the behavior of this administrative body since it became active in September 2012 through the end of May 2017, combining views taken directly from Lex Machina’s Legal Analytics® platform with new charts that provide even more focused insights.
The latest PTAB Report presents comprehensive data in a variety of striking and innovative visual formats for quick and easy analysis. These include Lex Machina’s unique PTAB trial flow graphics that capture the entire lifecycle of every PTAB trial, from filing to ultimate disposition; boxplot visualizations to help understand PTAB timing; “bump charts” showing rankings of firms and how they have changed since 2017; and claim findings charts that allow users to immediately connect specific claims of interest to ultimate outcomes, and distinguish claims denied institution from those upheld or settled.
Among the report’s key findings:
- Resolutions: Top resolutions for terminated PTAB trials: denied institution (22% of terminated petitions), all the petitioned claims held unpatentable (20%), and settled before the institution decision was reached (17%).
- Technology Centers: PTAB trials on patent Technology Centers for communications (17% of terminated petitions) and semiconductors (15%) are most common, followed by transportation (13%) and computer architecture (12%), with mechanical engineering (10%) and biochemistry (9%) among the least common.
- Administrative Patent Judges (APJs): The most experienced APJs at PTAB have had more than 400 trials (Joni Chang, 442 trials; Sally Medley, 417; Kevin Turner, 414; and Jameson Lee, 405), but many have far fewer.
- Timing: Institution decisions are highly consistent around a median of 184 days (about 6 months), while times to final decisions have a median of 545 days (or about 1.5 years).
- Law Firms: Fish & Richardson is the most experienced firm in representing petitioners, and also appears as the second most experienced defending patent owners. Finnegan is the second most experienced firm representing petitioners, and ranks third for representing patent owners. Sterne Kessler led among firms representing patent owners.
- Parties: The top petitioners at the PTAB include Apple, Samsung, Google and Microsoft. In each of the years 2013 to 2015, Apple was the leading petitioner. In 2017, Comcast was the leading petitioner. Top patent owners include Zond, Magna Electronics, VirnetX and Intellectual Ventures.
- Grounds of Decision: CBM trials have been successful on § 101 grounds (of the 456 terminated CBM trials, 94 have resulted in claims held unpatentable under § 101, while only 4 have resulted in claims upheld under § 101). On the other hand, IPR petitions based on prior art on grounds of § 102 and § 103 appear to reach each of the various outcomes at approximately the same rate.
“In today’s patent dispute environment, understanding PTAB litigation and outcomes is an integral part of any legal team’s strategy,” said Owen Byrd, chief evangelist and general counsel of Lex Machina. “Our latest PTAB report highlights the many ways Legal Analytics gives practitioners a decisive edge over the competition, providing them with comprehensive, facts-based, timely information that would take weeks or months to compile by other means.”
The report data was compiled using Lex Machina’s Legal Analytics® platform, which is used by more than half of the Am Law 100, as well as major corporations such as Baxter, eBay, Microsoft, Nike and Samsung. Armed with the report, patent attorneys can make better strategic decisions related to forum planning. They can also make sound budgeting decisions using historical data about the timing of petitions, institutions, and final decisions.
Naveen Modi, Global Vice Chair of IP at Paul Hastings, and Brian Howard, Associate General Counsel and Legal Data Scientist at Lex Machina, will present the findings from the latest PTAB report on June 15th at 11:00 a.m. PDT. To register for the webcast, click here. To request a copy of the full report, please register here.
About Lex Machina
Lex Machina’s award-winning Legal Analytics® platform is a new category of legal technology that fundamentally changes how companies and law firms compete in the business and practice of law. Delivered as Software-as a-Service, Lex Machina provides strategic insights on judges, lawyers, parties, and more, mined from millions of pages of legal information. This allows law firms and companies to predict the behaviors and outcomes that different legal strategies will produce, enabling them to win cases and close business.
Lex Machina was named “Best Legal Analytics” by readers of The Recorder in 2014, 2015 and 2016, and received the “Best New Product of the Year” award in 2015 from the American Association of Law Libraries.
Based in Silicon Valley, Lex Machina is part of LexisNexis, a leading information provider and a pioneer in delivering trusted legal content and insights through innovative research and productivity solutions, supporting the needs of legal professionals at every step of their workflow. By harnessing the power of Big Data, LexisNexis provides legal professionals with essential information and insights derived from an unmatched collection of legal and news content—fueling productivity, confidence, and better outcomes. For more information, please visit www.lexmachina.com