As Dennis Crouch pointed out over at Patently-O, the release of an informally proposed amendment to the current patent reform bill that would set April 24 as a cutoff date for retroactive application of fee shifting provisions set off a surge of patent case filings just before the deadline.
Lex Machina confirms this surge of new filings on April 23.
Relative to the business days surrounding it, April 23 represented a spike for the district courts. According to Lex Machina’s data, 190 cases were filed on Wednesday, April 23 (compared to 31 the preceding Friday, 10 on Monday, 8 on Tuesday, 39 on Thursday afterwards, and 20 on Friday).
Looking at the whole of 2014 makes clear exactly how exceptional it is to have 190 filings in a single day.
In fact, 190 patent filed cases in a single day is the single highest number of new patent cases filed on any day since the year 2000.
Top 5 dates with most cases filed:
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Even looking at weekly and monthly patent case filing totals, this spike event is clearly recognizable as record-breaking.
Filings by week:
Filings by month:
Of the case filed on April 23, the overwhelming majority were filed in the Eastern District of Texas (153), with Delaware coming in a distant second (23), Central California third (9), and Northern California fourth (2). Each with a single case filed were the Northern District of Alabama, the Southern District of Florida, and the Western District of North Carolina.
