Patexia Insight 200: Top Lateral Moves in Patent Litigation 2023
As the patent litigation landscape continues to evolve, it's essential not only to analyze the trends and shifts but also to examine the law firms that strategically position themselves within this dynamic environment. With Texas maintaining its prominence in patent litigation, as highlighted in Patexia 198, the past year has seen significant lateral movements within the legal sphere. Drawing from the insights provided by our Patent Litigation Intelligence Report for 2024, this article covers the major lateral moves among attorneys and law firms, offering valuable insights into their implications for the patent litigation landscape.
As illustrated above, the annual caseload reached its peak in 2021 with 3,953 filings, showing a slight 0.38% increase in litigation activity compared to the previous year. However, in 2022, there was a decline in total filings, with 3,766 cases reported, marking a decrease of 4.73% from 2021. This downward trend persisted into 2023, with a further decrease of 17.5%, resulting in a total of 3,108 filings. On the other hand, the number of patents implicated in these cases followed varying trajectories. They witnessed a steady increase from 2018 to 2021, experienced a decline in 2022, and then saw another slight increase in 2023.
The full Patent Litigation Intelligence Report focuses on the cases filed over the past five years, from July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2023, using the most recent data update as of December 1, 2023. This allows sufficient time for most cases to progress and terminate, enabling meaningful insights to be drawn, including those derived from the outcomes of terminated cases. In addition to analyzing trends, the report ranks states and district courts based on patent litigation activity, identifying the most litigated patents, IPC codes, and provides in-depth analysis of terminated cases. It examines factors such as the average length for termination, the status of terminated cases, and draws conclusions on which side prevailed in cases that proceeded to trial, among other key insights. Moreover, going beyond statistical analysis, we have evaluated and ranked all stakeholders involved in these cases based on their activity and performance. This includes 30,671 companies, 3,309 law firms, 1,359 judges, and 15,808 attorneys, providing a comprehensive overview of their patent litigation practice.
We have incorporated a dedicated section on lateral moves to enhance the depth of our analysis. This section leverages data from the release of our previous report in January 2023, which is compared with current data, to identify and analyze the lateral movements of attorneys within the patent litigation landscape. To enhance the relevance and usefulness of the list for attorneys, we focused on the 1,000 most active attorneys, identifying individuals who undertook lateral moves to new firms or initiated their own firms during the past year. Our review uncovered a total of 39 such lateral moves. Here below is the table listing the details of each attorney, including their current and previous firms, the total number of cases in which they were involved as well as their current activity rank:
By using the lateral move data, we also conducted an analysis aimed at calculating the net gain for each law firm actively involved in patent litigation. This net gain is derived by subtracting the number of attorneys who departed from a firm from the number of attorneys who joined. A couple of observations on the top three law firms growing:
- Bunsow De Mory experienced notable growth with the addition of three attorneys, Marc Belloli, Elizabeth Day, and Jerry D. Tice II, all of whom are highly active and transitioning from Kramer Day Alberti Lim Tonkovich & Belloli LLP. Among their esteemed clientele are Express Mobile, Inc., Ramot at Tel Aviv University, and BiTMICRO Networks, Inc.
- White & Case also witnessed expansion, welcoming Yar R. Chaikovsky, Philip Ou, and Bruce Shei Yen, who previously practiced at Paul Hastings. Among their top clients are Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and StratosAudio, Inc.
- Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg saw the addition of Matthew G. Berkowitz and Patrick R. Colsher, both joining from Shearman & Sterling that is currently in the process of merging with Allen & Overy. Among Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg's top clients are VL Collective IP, LLC, Western Digital, and VideoLabs, Inc.
Stay tuned as in the following weeks we will be publishing the top most active and best-performing companies in patent litigation as highlighted in our Patent Litigation Intelligence report released in January.