The Act has hopes to make much-needed reforms to the ITC and protect it from ‘persistent abuse’ by patent ‘trolls’. But critics say it’s too one-sided, finds Sarah Speight.
Patent lawsuits and damages on the rise in US
15-03-2021
16-04-2018
Patent lawsuits saw an annual rise in the US last year for the first time since 2015, largely driven by a small number of high-volume litigants.
Courts also awarded a record $4.67 billion in patent damages in 2020, a major increase on the $1.5 billion awarded in 2019.
The findings came in Lex Machina’s annual Patent Litigation Report, published March 11. The report found that 4,060 patent cases were filed in US district courts last year, an increase of 469 since the previous year. This is still well below the 5,828 cases filed in 2015, but this is the first year since then that lawsuits have not fallen further.