A Look at the Fortune 100 and Patent Litigation

Corbett | October 11, 2007 11:48 AM

I found this very interesting, and wanted to share it with any IP geeks out there. An anonymous person called Troll Tracker (who it seems works in the industry in a firm somewhere) has made a ranking of Fortune 100 companies by how many times they have been sued since 2006, and whether it's by their competitors or what people call patent trolls, more specifically non-practicing patent holders without a product.

The reason why it's interesting is because of the push for patent reform bill that was passed by the House and is now going to the Senate. This is a knee jerk reaction lobbied by hi-tech, insurance, and financial companies who have recently been hit hard by patent litigation rulings, who argue that patent trolls are the cause. Pharma and chemical companies do not support the bill interestingly enough. If you read further, you get to Troll Tracker's interesting conclusion.

I of course, am firmly on the side of the individual inventor, who is screwed by this new bill, and am tired of all this bogus patent troll whining by larger companies who just want to maintain their IRR irrespective of how the law has worked well for years. It makes me even more committed to stick to my guns and "stick it to the man" when possible. Remember, these are guys who are used to getting their way. Now they think they can just reboot the legal system, and start all over again with things in their favor.

Just to add some fuel to the fire, here's an interview from Sky Radio's progam called "America's Premier Lawyers" with a top lawyer from McDermott Will & Emery who is asked to talk about patent trolls, and amusingly he essentially says flat out that they're not really an issue as the larger companies have much more patent prosecution and litigation between them. (To hear this, you have to go to this link at Sky Radio and scroll down to "Stephen J. Akerley - On Patent Trolls -Companies That Produce No Products Or Services" since their page embeds javascript meaning I can't link directly to this page)

Aerospace/Defense: 7 companies, 10 lawsuits
Automotive: 4 companies, 21 lawsuits
Chemicals/Food Processing: 9 companies, 7 lawsuits
Energy: 8 companies, 7 lawsuits
Entertainment: 2 companies, 5 lawsuits
Equipment/Machinery/Metals: 3 companies, 3 lawsuits
Financial/Banking/Securities: 13 companies, 16 lawsuits
Grocery/Drugstore: 5 companies, 19 lawsuits
Health Care: 9 companies, 13 lawsuits
High Tech/Telecom: 13 companies, 192 lawsuits
Insurance: 12 companies, 12 lawsuits
Pharma/Consumer: 4 companies, 28 lawsuits
Retail: 9 companies, 87 lawsuits
Transportation/Freight: 2 companies, 10 lawsuits

"Overall, out of the 430 patent cases filed against Fortune 100 companies, 138 were filed by competitors (32.1%), 54 were filed by Universities, individual inventors, or research organizations ("U/II/R") (12.6%), and 238 were filed by non-practicing entities, which I will call patent trolls for the sake of this study (55.3%)."

How did it break down by industry?

Pharma/Consumer: 28 lawsuits, 24 competitor, 4 U/II/R, 0 trolls (0%)
Chemicals/Food: 7 lawsuits: 6 competitor, 1 U/II/R, 0 trolls (0%)Aerospace/Defense: 10 lawsuits: 7 competitor, 1 U/II/R, 2 trolls (20%)
Retail: 87 lawsuits: 44 competitors, 17 U/I/RR, 26 trolls (29.9%)
Automotive: 21 lawsuits: 4 competitor, 6 U/II/R, 11 trolls (52.4%)
Grocery/Drugstore: 19 lawsuits: 9 competitor, 10 trolls (52.6%)
Health Care: 13 lawsuits, 5 competitors, 8 trolls (61.5%)
Equipment/Machinery/Metals: 3 lawsuits: 1 competitor, 0 U/II/R, 2 trolls (66.7%)
High Tech/Telecom: 192 lawsuits, 35 competitors, 24 U/II/R, 133 trolls (69.2%)Energy: 7 lawsuits: 1 competitor, 1 U/II/R, 5 trolls (71.4%)
Insurance: 12 lawsuits: 2 competitors, 10 trolls (83.3%)
Entertainment: 5 lawsuits: 0 competitor, 0 U/II/R, 5 trolls (100%)
Transportation/Freight: 10 lawsuit, 10 trolls (100%)
Financial/Banking/Securities: 16 lawsuits, 16 trolls (100%)

"Now does anybody wonder why Pharma and the Chemical companies are on one side of the patent reform debate, with High Tech, Insurance and Financial on the other? The two groups are seeing completely different patent litigation. The Pharma and Chemical companies are seeing lawsuits by their competitors, at the rate of about 1 per company every 3 months. High Tech, on the other hand, is seeing primarily patent trolls, and at a much faster rate. The High Tech industry is seeing far more patent litigation, too."

From Troll Tracker

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