IP-related statistics from the recent past
A selection of key IP facts and figures, as reported by IAM and other sources
Table 1. Most favourable US federal district courts to patent holders, 1995-2013
Overall rank | District | Median time to trial (years) | Overall success rate | Median damages awarded |
1 | Virginia Eastern | 0.97 | 32% | $37,334,272 |
2 | Delaware | 1.97 | 41% | $19,105,617 |
3 | Texas Eastern | 2.21 | 57% | $9,101,683 |
4 | Wisconsin Western | 1.08 | 31% | $4,901,798 |
5 | Florida Middle | 1.8 | 54% | $322,927 |
6 | Texas Southern | 2.01 | 23% | $57,046,837 |
7 | New Jersey | 2.71 | 34% | $16,584,682 |
8 | Texas Northern | 2.42 | 46% | $3,643,782 |
9 | California Central | 2.23 | 29% | $3,139,412 |
10 | California Northern | 2.44 | 23% | $8,425,257 |
11 | New York Southern | 2.88 | 28% | $5,581,695 |
12 | Massachusetts | 3.58 | 31% | $4,237,438 |
13 | Minnesota | 2.66 | 29% | $1,648,192 |
14 | Illinois Northern | 3.67 | 26% | $5,978,390 |
15 | Florida Southern | 2.5 | 25% | $380,052 |
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers 2014 Patent Litigation Study
Table 2. Stock performance of selected publicly traded IP-centric companies, May-July 2014
Company | Market | Ticker symbol | Share price at market close, May 23 | Share price at market close, July 23 | Percentage change in share price, May 23-July 23 | Market cap, July 23 |
Acacia Research | NASDAQ | ACTG | 15.07 | 14.97 | -0.66% | $749.44m |
CopyTele* | OTCMKTS | COPY | 0.32 | 0.26 | -18.75% | $56.42m |
InterDigital | NASDAQ | IDCC | 37.71 | 44.69 | 18.51% | $1.81b |
Marathon Patent Group** | OTCBB | MARA | 8.55 | 12.39 | 44.91% | $68.02m |
OPTi | OTCMKTS | OPTI | 0.51 | 0.51 | 0.00% | $5.94m |
ParkerVision | NASDAQ | PRKR | 4.67 | 1.33 | -71.52% | $128.63m |
Pendrell Corporation | NASDAQ | PCO | 1.59 | 1.62 | 1.89% | $346.02m |
Spherix | NASDAQ | SPEX | 1.51 | 1.53 | 1.32% | $18.77m |
Unwired Planet | NASDAQ | UPIP | 2.19 | 2.04 | -6.85% | $225.29m |
VirnetX | NYSE | VHC | 15.51 | 14.76 | -4.84% | $760.03m |
Vringo | NASDAQ | VRNG | 3.27 | 3.3 | 0.92% | $285.50m |
Wi-LAN | TSX | WIN | 3.29 | 3.36 | 2.13% | C$403.55m |
RPX Corporation | NASDAQ | RPXC | 16.49 | 16.37 | -0.73% | $867.82m |
Document Security Systems | NYSE | DSS | 1.32 | 1.37 | 3.79% | $68.10m |
Rambus | NASDAQ | RMBS | 11.76 | 12.53 | 6.55% | $1.43b |
Tessera Technologies | NASDAQ | TSRA | 22.44 | 23.56 | 4.99% | $1.26b |
Murgitroyd Group | LSE | MUR | 664 | 547 | -17.62% | £48.83m |
RWS Holdings | LSE | RWS | 866.5 | 770.5 | -11.08% | £326.04m |
IP Group | LSE | IPO | 170.6 | 195.5 | 14.60% | £937.47m |
Source: Google Finance * Data from Yahoo! Finance **Marathon Patent Group stock began trading on the NASDAQ as of July 28 2014
Business model
Hybrid patent monetisation/operating company
Venture capital
Patent monetisation
Defensive patent aggregation
Service provider
Table 3a. Top 30 patent assignees by number of transactions,
May-June 2014
# | Assignee entity | Number of assignments transacted |
1 | Canon Kabushiki Kaisha | 668 |
2 | Energy, United States Department Of | 192 |
3 | CNH Industrial America, LLC | 172 |
4 | Theravance Biopharma R&D IP, LLC | 140 |
5 | International Business Machines Corporation | 94 |
6 | BTG International Limited | 88 |
7 | Dow Global Technologies LLC | 82 |
8 | Siemens Aktiengesellschaft | 78 |
9 | Qualcomm Incorporated | 75 |
10 | Panasonic Corporation | 75 |
11 | Intel Corporation | 73 |
12 | Ericsson Modems SA | 65 |
13 | Samsung Electronics Co, Ltd | 64 |
14 | Sony Corporation | 60 |
15 | National Institutes Of Health (NIH), US Dept Of Health And Human Services (DHHS), US Government | 54 |
16 | Microsoft Corporation | 53 |
17 | Google Inc | 50 |
18 | The Dow Chemical Company | 44 |
19 | Symbol Technologies, Inc | 42 |
20 | Telefonaktiebolaget L M Ericsson (PUBL) | 41 |
21 | CNH Industrial Canada, Ltd | 41 |
22 | WebTV Networks, Inc | 36 |
23 | Nuventix, Inc | 36 |
24 | Resmed Limited | 35 |
25 | Japan Display Inc | 35 |
26 | The Johns Hopkins University | 34 |
27 | Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha | 34 |
28 | US Department Of Energy | 33 |
29 | Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha | 32 |
30 | The Regents Of The University Of California | 32 |
Source: ktMINE (www.ktmine.com)
Table 3b. Top 30 patent assignors by number of transactions,
May-June 2014
# | Assignor entity | Number of assignments transacted |
1 | Theravance, Inc | 175 |
2 | Sharp Laboratories Of America, Inc | 31 |
3 | Searete LLC | 29 |
4 | Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc | 25 |
5 | Origin Medsystems, LLC | 23 |
6 | Sobha Renaissance Information Technology | 18 |
7 | General Electric Capital Corporation | 15 |
8 | Silicon Valley Bank | 14 |
9 | Keybank National Association | 14 |
10 | Voith Patent GmbH | 13 |
11 | Siemens Corporation | 13 |
12 | Mahalingam, Raghavendran | 13 |
13 | Cook Incorporated | 13 |
14 | Panasonic Corporation | 12 |
15 | Sustainx, Inc | 10 |
16 | Sony Mobile Communications AB | 9 |
17 | Kriesel, Joshua W | 9 |
18 | JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA, As Administrative Agent | 9 |
19 | Grimm, Daniel N | 9 |
20 | Booth, John Stanley | 9 |
21 | Tenebraex Corporation | 8 |
22 | Ismagilov, Rustem F, Mr | 8 |
23 | Darbin, Stephen P | 8 |
24 | Cardiothoracic Systems, LLC | 8 |
25 | Schwickert, Markus | 7 |
26 | Sanyo Electric Co, Ltd | 7 |
27 | Kadam, Kiran L | 7 |
28 | JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA | 7 |
29 | Thomson, Kenneth | 6 |
30 | Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc | 6 |
Source: ktMINE (www.ktmine.com)
Table 4. Countries ranked by value of royalties and licence fees receipts as a percentage of total trade
Rank | Country | Value (% of total trade) | Normalised score (out of 100) |
1 | United States | 5.1 | 100 |
2 | Switzerland | 5 | 99.5 |
3 | Netherlands | 4.7 | 98 |
4 | Finland | 3.5 | 90.8 |
5 | Guyana | 3.4 | 89.9 |
6 | Japan | 3.3 | 89.3 |
7 | Sweden | 2.8 | 85.6 |
8 | Iceland | 2.8 | 85.5 |
9 | Ireland | 2.4 | 81.2 |
10 | Paraguay | 2.4 | 81.2 |
Source: World Intellectual Property Organization, INSEAD and Cornell University, Global Innovation Index 2014
Tables 3a and 3b show the entities with the highest volume of in-bound patent assignment transactions (assignee table) and out-bound patent assignment transactions (assignor table) as recorded at the US Patent and Trademark Office. These results are calculated by aggregating the number of transactions completed by an assignee/assignor in May and June 2014. One transaction may include multiple patents, patent families and patent portfolios. Many companies create numerous holding vehicles to house their different IP portfolios; this is why similar company names appear multiple times in the tables.