Patexia Insight 39: Most Active IPR Petitioners and Patent Owners

Last September we released the top 25 petitioners in IPRs. Apple was atop the list with almost 5 percent of all cases filed. We reviewed all IPR cases again this year and, as of the end of the second quarter, there were 6,580 IPR challenges filed before the PTAB. Apple again remains number one with 298 IPR cases, followed by Samsung with 216 cases. The top five have been involved in about 14 percent of all challenges. We further reviewed the top 5 petitioners and top 5 patent owners since the inception of IPR.

We also determined that a small group of companies files a majority of IPR challenges. On the petitioner side, Apple ranked first with 297 cases, followed by Samsung (205), Google (130), Microsoft (109), and LG Electronics (101). This represents 13 percent of all filings since IPR’s inception in September 2012.

On the patent owner side, the top five mainly consist of non-practicing entities. Zond was ranked first with 125 IPR challenges. We extensively reviewed the company back in March (Patexia Insight 31 and Patexia Insight 32). We learned that none of their 10 patents challenged by eight companies survived.

The next 3 were all non-practicing entities. Acacia Research Group was ranked second with 123 cases, followed by Intellectual Ventures (80 cases) and Marathon Patent Group (73 cases). Magna Electronics, which is a subsidiary of the Canadian automotive supplier, grabbed the fifth spot.

To construct this list, we combined all the subsidiaries of large corporations or all the entities that belong to a certain company. Specifically, on the patent owner side, a single parent company often directly controls many entities. This is the case for most of the non-practicing entities (NPEs), such as Acacia Research Group or Marathon Patent Group. We used publicly available documents to identify the entities directly managed by these companies.

For Further Reading
Yesterday, we released our first comprehensive IPR Intelligence Report under our Patexia Insights arm, and it’s available for download now. This is the first installment of a bi-annual report that investigates IPR challenges from many angles, including the top 50 petitioners and patent owners in terms of activity and performance. We have calculated the performance of many entities active in IPR including Unified Patents, RPX, and many NPEs. Also included is a ranking of law firms and attorneys representing these entities in order to help both parties involved in IPR better understand this growing market and make informed choices about their service providers.

Although Apple, Samsung, Google, and other companies named in this article were among the most active companies, they did not necessarily obtain the best outcome from all their cases. In the following weeks, we will share our analysis of the top performing petitioners and patent owners, including which entities saw the best outcomes from these challenges on each side.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.