Lex Machina Reports Record 3,122 New Federal Patent Cases Filed in First Half of 2015

Biggest First-Half-Year Ever Reverses 2014 Downward Trend

Menlo Park, CA, July 14, 2015 – Lex Machina, pioneer of Legal Analytics®, announced today that 3,122 new federal patent cases were filed during the first six months of 2015, exceeding the total for any prior first-half-year period and reversing the downward trend in new case filings observed in 2014.

The 5,070 new cases filed in 2014 represented a drop from the record high of 6,107 new cases filed in 2013.  If new cases continue to be filed in the second half of 2015 at the rate seen in the first half, the total for 2015 will exceed the 2013 record total.

“Federal courts continue to be critical forums for resolving patent disputes,” said Owen Byrd, Lex Machina’s Chief Evangelist and General Counsel.  “While the U.S. PTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board has grown in importance since it opened for business in 2012, district courts remain the primary venue for patent litigation.”

With 1,387 new cases filed in the first half of 2015, the Eastern District of Texas remains the busiest patent district in the U.S., with a 166% increase in new filings compared to the second half of 2014.  The District of Delaware, while still the second most active district for patent cases, saw a 40% decrease over the same period, with only 254 new patent cases filed so far in 2015.

Click here to view the full breakdown of Spring 2015 Patent Case Filing Trends:
https://lexmachina.com/2015-first-half-patent-case-filing-trends/

About Lex Machina
Lex Machina provides award winning Legal Analytics, a new category of legal technology that profoundly changes how companies and law firms compete in the business and practice of law. Delivered as Software-as a-Service, Lex Machina creates structured data sets covering districts, judges, law firms, lawyers, parties, and patents out of millions of pages of legal information. Legal Analytics allows law firms and companies, for the first time ever, to predict the behaviors and outcomes that different legal strategies will produce, enabling them to win cases and close business.

Lex Machina is used by companies such as Microsoft, Google, and eBay, and law firms including Wilson Sonsini, Fish & Richardson, and Fenwick & West. The company was created by experts at Stanford’s Law School and Computer Science Department. In 2014, Lex Machina was named one of the “Best New Legal Services” by readers of The Recorder. In 2015, Lex Machina received the New Product of the Year award from AALL.