6 days ago

Patexia Insight 235: Top Patent Litigation Law Firms 2025

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Patent litigation serves as a key battleground for protecting innovation, safeguarding intellectual property rights, and shaping industry dynamics. In late January 2025, Patexia released its highly anticipated Patent Litigation Intelligence Report, offering a comprehensive analysis of patent litigation activity over the past five years based on extensive data, including 17,342 unique patents litigated across 17,985 District Court cases.

The report provides a high-level overview of statistics related to filings, case outcomes, technologies litigated, and other key trends. This data is then further utilized to evaluate and rank all entities, including law firms, attorneys, and companies, by both activity and performance. As part of our annual tradition, this article highlights the firms at the forefront of patent litigation, recognizing those that have demonstrated exceptional activity and performance.

Case Outcomes: The Basis for Performance Rankings

Our Patent Litigation Intelligence Report 2025 analyzes patent litigation activity over the past five years, covering cases filed between July 1, 2019, and June 30, 2024, with data updated as of December 1, 2024. Out of the 17,985 cases filed during the period of study, 15,375 have been terminated as of the latest update. The breakdown of case statuses is shown in the chart below. A significant portion of cases were voluntarily dismissed or settled, while others resulted in judgments, statistical closures, or transfers. These outcomes serve as one of the key foundations of our performance evaluation, helping us identify the top entities in patent litigation.

Top Ranked Law Firms

A total of 3,186 law firms represented plaintiffs or defendants in 17,985 patent litigation cases. Our analysis identified 2,143 firms advocating for plaintiffs and 2,123 firms defending clients, with some appearing on both sides in different cases. While many firms handled only a few cases, a select group exhibited notably high activity levels, managing a significant share of all filings. Some firms litigated cases independently, while others served as local counsel, particularly in high-activity jurisdictions such as Texas, Delaware, and California. To provide a clearer distinction, we have categorized local counsel separately in our report and rankings.

Below is a table highlighting some of the most active and best-performing law firms from the Patent Litigation Intelligence Report 2025. These firms have earned their recognition based on either their high case volume or exceptional performance. Notably, firms ranking in the top 200 are within the top six percentile of all 3,186 firms analyzed.

Law Firm	All Cases	Category	Rank
DLA Piper	449	Defendant Activity Rank	2
McKool Smith	377	Plaintiff Activity Rank	2
Morrison & Foerster	246	Defendant Performance Rank	4
Russ August & Kabat	408	Plaintiff Activity Rank	5
Alston & Bird	297	Overall Activity Rank	7
Greenberg Traurig LLP	250	Defendant Activity Rank	9
Fenwick & West LLP	183	Defendant Performance Rank	14
Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton	218	Defendant Activity Rank	14
Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox	74	Plaintiff Performance Rank	15
Kramer Alberti Lim & Tonkovich LLP	110	Plaintiff Activity Rank	24
Haynes and Boone, LLP	96	Defendant Performance Rank	25
Bunsow De Mory	68	Plaintiff Activity Rank	37
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati	94	Defendant Performance Rank	42
Kelly Hart & Hallman	64	Defendant Performance Rank	44
Erise IP P.A.	68	Defendant Activity Rank	51
Klarquist Sparkman	51	Defendant Performance Rank	52
White & Case	76	Defendant Activity Rank	53
Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.	109	Plaintiff Activity Rank	62
Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks	69	Defendant Activity Rank	74
Heim, Payne & Chorush LLP	49	Plaintiff Activity Rank	105
PV Law LLP	27	Defendant Activity Rank	112
Alavi Anaipakos, PLLC	46	Plaintiff Activity Rank	116
Hankin Patent Law	30	Plaintiff Activity Rank	172

About the Rankings

Patent litigation rankings offer valuable insights into the most experienced and effective attorneys and law firms handling disputes. For companies seeking to protect their innovations, these rankings serve as a trusted resource to identify the best legal teams for their cases. Beyond assisting companies, these rankings also provide strategic value to attorneys and law firms. By analyzing their own performance and comparing it with competitors, firms can assess their strengths, refine litigation strategies, and highlight their expertise to potential clients. Additionally, attorneys can use the report to track industry trends, judicial tendencies, and key players, helping them make informed decisions about business development, partnerships, and career opportunities.

To evaluate activity, we consider various factors, including the number of cases a firm handled and the patents involved in each case. Meanwhile, for performance, we analyze terminated cases, carefully evaluating each case outcome and identifying which party achieved a more favorable result. This analysis forms the basis of our Success Score, which is then combined with activity metrics to determine overall performance rankings, as outlined in our methodology.

Access the Full Report

The Patent Litigation Intelligence Report 2025 provides a comprehensive analysis of the patent litigation landscape, offering in-depth statistics on district court activity, IPC codes, and case conclusions among others. Beyond firm rankings, the report includes full data and rankings for the top 2,000 attorneys and companies, along with insights into judicial activity. Additionally, it covers lateral moves among attorneys, an aspect previously explored in our insights. For a complete list of rankings and a deeper understanding of litigation trends, the full report is available here.

Stay tuned for our upcoming insights, where we will highlight some of the top attorneys in patent litigation.