IP-related statistics from the recent past

A selection of key IP facts and figures, as reported by IAM and other sources

Inter partes review performance after five years of PTAB

To mark the fifth anniversary of the creation of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), IAM looks at selected inter partes review performance metrics for major users of the system. Below are results from five of the leading filers (Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft and LG) as well as a few other notable corporates: Mylan from the pharma sector; Facebook, a particularly active filer of late; Toyota, a leading filer in the auto sector; and finally Unified Patents, the most active third-party filer. We have also included the numbers for the market overall to see how each company compares with the totals. This data does not include every outcome – for instance, there are no numbers on how many inter partes reviews were open pre-institution or had been procedurally dismissed – just a selection which captures each company’s performance.

Table 1. Selected inter partes review performance metrics for major PTAB users

 

Inter partes reviews filed (as petitioner)

Instituted

Denied institution

All claims unpatentable

All claims upheld

Settled pre-institution

Settled post-institution

Apple

374

188 (50%)

81 (22%)

77 (21%)

3 (1%)

39 (10%)

20 (5%)

Samsung Electronics

275

158 (57%)

36 (13%)

50 (18%)

9 (3%)

25 (9%)

16 (6%)

Google

189

93 (49%)

17 (9%)

46 (24%)

9 (5%)

39 (21%)

10 (5%)

Microsoft

134

66 (49%)

17 (13%)

15 (11%)

6 (4%)

22 (16%)

9 (7%)

LG Electronics

132

85 (64%)

13 (10%)

21 (16%)

7 (5%)

7 (5%)

12 (9%)

Mylan Pharmaceuticals

81

44 (54%)

10 (12%)

7 (9%)

10 (12%)

20 (25%)

2 (2%)

Facebook

76

35 (46%)

10 (13%)

5 (7%)

1 (1%)

0

3 (3%)

Unified Patents

74

20 (27%)

22 (30%)

5 (7%)

0

14 (19%)

5 (7%)

Toyota

52

20 (38%)

7 (13%)

5 (10%)

2 (4%)

12 (23%)

8 (15%)

Overall market

7,242

3,628 (50%)

1,194 (16%)

1,115 (15%)

270 (4%)

921 (13%)

693 (10%)

Source: Lex Machina

Table 2. Stock performance of selected publicly traded IP-centric companies, July-September 2017

Source: Google Finance

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 July and August 2017.

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 may appear multiple times in the tables.

Table 3A. Top 30 patent assignees by number of transactions, July-August 2017

#

Assignee entity

Number of assignments transacted

1

National Institutes Of Health (NIH), U.S. Dept. Of Health And Human Services (DHHS), U.S. Government

165

2

Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

150

3

Dow Global Technologies LLC

148

4

LG Electronics Inc.

118

5

Thomson Reuters Global Resources Unlimited Company

109

6

National Institutes Of Health - Director DEITR

97

7

AAC Technologies Pte. Ltd.

89

8

Nestec S.A.

86

9

Siemens Healthcare GmbH

78

10

Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

60

11

The Regents Of The University Of California

59

12

National Science Foundation

59

13

Thomson Licensing

54

14

Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

48

15

Good Technology Holdings Limited

48

16

Google Inc.

47

17

Intel Corporation

45

18

Marvell International Ltd.

43

19

Koninklijke Philips N.V.

41

20

Here Global B.V.

40

21

Toshiba Memory Corporation

40

22

International Business Machines Corporation

39

23

Avary Holding (Shenzhen) Co., Limited.

39

24

NIH-DEITR

36

25

BASF SE

36

26

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology

35

27

Inphi Corporation

35

28

Ecolab USA Inc.

35

29

The Dow Chemical Company

34

30

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

34

Source: ktMINE (www.ktmine.com)

Table 3B. Top 30 patent assignors by number of transactions, July-August 2017

#

Assignor entity

Number of assignments transacted

1

Here Global B.V.

38

2

ZTE Corporation

35

3

Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc.

29

4

Sony Corporation

29

5

Wayne State University

22

6

University Of Utah

22

7

Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc.

18

8

Siemens Aktiengesellschaft

17

9

North Carolina State University Raleigh

16

10

Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

15

11

Huh, Byungmu

15

12

San Diego State University Research Foundation

14

13

Partners Healthcare Innovation

13

14

California Institute Of Technology

13

15

Bank Of America, N.A.

13

16

Wood, Lowell L., Jr.

12

17

Silicon Valley Bank

12

18

Florida State University

12

19

Children's Hospital & Res Ctr At Oakland

12

20

Sharp Laboratories Of America, Inc.

11

21

New York Blood Center

11

22

Wells Fargo Bank, National Association

10

23

Searete LLC

10

24

Park, Sunha

10

25

Icahn School Of Medicine At Mount Sinai

10

26

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.

10

27

Presage Biosciences, Inc.

9

28

Kim, Younsoo

9

29

Kim, Yooseok

9

30

Kentley-Klay, Timothy David

9

Source: ktMINE (www.ktmine.com)

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