Patexia Insight 8: 25 Most Litigated Patents Responsible for 6% of All Lawsuits
Last week we published the number of unique patent assertions since 2010, surprisingly noticing that this number has been on a steady decline. Given that the number of lawsuits has been rising, we surmised that some of the patents must have been involved in many lawsuits. We have now identified the most litigated patents since 2010, and the results are surprising again! The top-ranked patent has been involved in more than 450 lawsuits since 2010. The top 25-ranked patents combined have been involved in more than 2,100 unique cases, accounting for about 6.3% of all cases since 2010. We also identified the top 10 plaintiffs for these cases, and ArrivalStar S.A. was the number one plaintiff on the list.
Since 2010, there has been 33,408 lawsuits involving 22,791 unique patents This includes the first half of 2016 as well. The following 25 patents or (0.1% of the 22,791 unique patents) were used in at least 2,100 cases, which accounts for more than 6.3% of all lawsuits since 2010.
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25 Most Litigated Patents since 2010 |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Patent | Plaintiff | 1st Filing Date |
No. of Cases |
| 1 | ArrivalStar S.A | Apr 14, 2010 | 457 | |
| 2 | 7400970 | ArrivalStar S.A | Jul 13, 2010 | 416 |
| 3 | 6952645 | ArrivalStar S.A | Feb 12, 2010 | 343 |
| 4 | 6266674 | eDekka LLC | Nov 20, 2013 | 261 |
| 5 | 6714859 | ArrivalStar S.A | Feb 12, 2010 | 249 |
| 6 | 5388198 | Data Carriers | Mar 16, 2012 | 197 |
| 7 | 7030781 | ArrivalStar S.A | Feb 12, 2010 | 187 |
| 8 | 5412730 | TQP Development | Mar 10, 2010 | 159 |
| 9 | RE043462 | Hawk Technology System | Feb 21, 2013 | 157 |
| 10 | 6486801 | ArrivalStar S.A | Jul 13, 2010 | 143 |
| 11 | 5930474 | GeoTag Inc. | Jul 23, 2010 | 129 |
| 12 | 5506866 | Wyncomm | Apr 11, 2013 | 126 |
| 13 | 6442485 | NovelPoint Tracking | Apr 2, 2012 | 116 |
| 14 | 7876239 | Eclipse IP | May 12, 2011 | 109 |
| 15 | 7660700 | Blue Spike | Aug 9, 2012 | 107 |
| 16 | 7346472 | Blue Spike | Aug 9, 2012 | 107 |
| 17 | 7949494 | Blue Spike | Sep 29, 2009 | 107 |
| 18 | 8214175 | Blue Spike | Aug 9, 2012 | 107 |
| 19 | 6611349 | CTP Innovations | Jun 13, 201 | 106 |
| 20 | 7479899 | Eclipse IP | May 12, 2011 | 101 |
| 21 | 6415207 | ArrivalStar S.A | Jul 13, 2010 | 95 |
| 22 | 6272533 | PanTaurus | Sep 3, 2013 | 95 |
| 23 | 6763299 | ArrivalStar S.A | Jan 19, 2016 | 91 |
| 24 | 7934148 | Unified Messaging Solutions | Sep 7, 2011 | 87 |
| 25 | 7119716 |
Eclipse IP |
May 12, 2011 | 86 |
Some of the top 25-ranked patents in the above list have the same owner. For example ArrivalStar S.A. is the owner of eight of them. The inventor on file for all eight patents is Mr. Martin Kelly Jones, and they are all about vehicle tracking systems. All but one has the same priority date of May 18, 1993.
The companies sued for these eight patents are from many different industries, including transportation, manufacturing, retail and telecommunications. On July 27, 2015, the patents were assigned to a new entity: Shipping and Transit LLC. A number of new cases were filed recently under the new ownership. According to EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), the group asks for a settlement in the range of $50K to $70K per defendant. Some defendants have asked the court to consider invalidation of at least two of the patents under 101 (i.e., patentable subject matter) based on Alice Case.
As many defendants are fighting against the top 25 patents, if any of them survive the litigation, they will become some of the most valuable patents, assuming they cover a large market. The following chart shows the top 10 plaintiffs controlling the enforcement rights for the above 25 patents.
Looking at the top 25 patents or in other words, 0.1% of all patents involved in litigation since 2010, we discovered they were responsible for more than 6% of all lawsuits filed since then. This confirms that the number of lawsuits by itself is not the best measure for litigation because hundreds of lawsuits may be filed based on a single patent. In fact, last week we showed that the number of unique patents involved in lawsuits has been declining. In our analysis, we also identified the top 10 plaintiffs who control the enforcement rights for these 25 patents. All ten on the list are non-practicing entities (NPEs) with ArrivalStar S.A at the top.
In the following weeks, we plan to show the key technologies litigated in the past few years and identify the trends in the near future.