Article One Partners Unveils Survey Results From IP Patent Litigation Study

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Apr 17, 2012) - Article One Partners (AOP), the world's largest patent research community, has unveiled the findings from its second annual Napa summit. In a comprehensive survey designed to gauge the state of the global patent industry, 36 senior executives from more than 20 Intellectual Property (IP)-leading companies discussed urgent issues facing the IP industry. The survey found that although patent threats are on the rise, collaborative solutions, including AOP's global research network, are key to both deterring and managing nuisance lawsuits. Additionally, executives discussed the rise of patents as a new source of a company's assets.

Among the companies surveyed were 10 of the top 30 targets of Non-Practicing Entities (NPEs), which own and profit from patents they may never use. Attendees represented the high tech, media and entertainment, and life sciences sectors. The senior industry thought leaders at the summit discussed strategies to avoid, deter and manage the threat of litigation by NPEs, as well as patent reform changes set in motion by the America Invents Act (AIA), federal legislation that has overhauled the patent system.

Highlighted Survey Findings from the Napa Summit

Companies are facing an increase in IP-related litigation. Over one-third of companies surveyed had 50 or more active IP litigation matters. In addition, the survey found that:

• NPE litigation in the high technology industries represented 75% of all active litigation matters. More than half the executives surveyed reported that NPE litigation increased over last year, with a median estimated increase of 22%.
• More than 80% of IP legal budgets are used for litigation defense activities.
• The majority of overall patent litigation matters take a year or more to settle, with 27% taking more than two years.
• It cost companies an average of $1.1 million to defend a single NPE lawsuit.

The Napa Summit's Key Takeaways

Two days of discussion yielded six key takeaways for building a better future for the U.S. IP system. These takeaways included:

1) Reduce the costs of litigation defense through collaboration, such as working with joint defense groups (JDGs) and engaging shared co-counsel.
2) Make collaboration industry-efficient through tools such as standard JDG agreements and project management systems for joint defense efforts. Article One Partners plays an important role by offering patent intelligence and evaluating patent quality.
3) Leverage the patent reexamination process. Engage the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to determine the quality of patents, thus eliminating narrow or low-quality patents used in infringement claims.
4) Deter future litigation by engaging senior leadership. Use business statistics and ROI analysis to educate executives on the impact and cost of litigation, gaining their support for pre-litigation and avoidance strategies.
5) Engage with the AIA. Providing comments about key definitions and standards to the USPTO will help ensure that the views of stakeholders are incorporated into implementing the new act.
6) Leverage data content and third-party services. Organizing large data sets is key to valuing and strategizing around litigation. AOP's data content in its prior art database grows in value with every research project, and the capability to weigh results based on the identification of evidence by multiple crowd resources increases relevancy.

"The IP industry reached a critical turning point last year," said Cheryl Milone, founder and CEO of Article One Partners. "The AIA overhauled the U.S. patent system, and NPEs are growing both in volume and in sophistication. In this challenging environment, preventing and mitigating patent litigation threats is becoming a top priority for companies across industries. By facilitating a better understanding of the patent challenges faced by today's companies, the senior thought leaders at the Napa summit are equipping decision makers to better handle today's patent environment."

To read a full summary of the results of the Napa summit, please visit http://info.articleonepartners.com/napa-results.

For more information on active Patent Studies and to learn how to participate in AOP's research, go to http://www.articleonepartners.com.

About Article One Partners

Article One Partners (AOP) has revolutionized the transparency of patent data. Today, AOP is the world's largest patent research community. The company has distributed requests for prior art research to more than one million scientists and technologists using a global online human search engine. AOP is active in 188 countries, presents search requests in 10 languages and is exceptionally successful in identifying key foreign language evidence, non- textual and non-patent literature. The company is a partner to 16 Fortune 100 companies, 50 Forbes Global 2000 and 7 of the top 10 US patent filers. AOP's client satisfaction rate exceeds 90%.

AOP has a distinguished Board, led by Marshall Phelps, the former head of patents and licensing at IBM and Microsoft. Founded in 2008 by patent community leader, inventor and entrepreneur, CEO Cheryl Milone, the company's product offerings have been called "revolutionary" and "game changing" by leading authorities. In short, many consider AOP to be the new industry standard.