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.

25 Most Litigated Patents since 2010
Rank	Patent	Plaintiff	1st Filing Date	No. of Cases
1	6904359	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.