Fulbright report still confident on patent litigation trends

It's one minute past midnight -- time to break the news: the findings and conclusions of the Fulbright & Jaworski 2010 Litigation Trends Survey are now available. As the firm explains,

"Annually, hundreds of corporate counsel participate in our Litigation Trends survey and offer some interesting perspectives on what trends they are seeing in the world of litigation. The majority of respondents this year reported that they expect litigation to continue at the same pace or to trend upward in the year ahead, and say stricter regulation is a major concern".

Of particular interest to readers of this weblog is what the survey has to say about patent litigation.  At paragraphs 21-22 the Survey observes as follows:

"Slightly More Popular: Patent claims may not be as high as they once were, but there was a slight increase in the number of respondents this year who said they have been involved in a patent infringement proceeding as a claimant or plaintiff. In the past year, 20% of all respondents filed one or more patents claims compared to 17% of respondents to the 2009 survey. Manufacturing, engineering and real estate all reported increases in the number of patent suits they filed in the previous year, with manufacturers doubling their filings from last year, to 52%. The outlier was tech/communications industry respondents, who indicated a drop from 38% to 15%. Meanwhile, public companies were three times more likely than private companies to file patent suits.

Protecting Patents: A majority of respondents think patent offense and defense will stay the same in the coming year. Hot sectors for patent suits in 2011 may be in health care and manufacturing companies, where 17% and 16%, respectively, say they expect to file more patent suits in the year ahead. Meanwhile, retail/wholesale and manufacturing respondents say they may be on the defensive end of that equation with 21% of retail/wholesale survey participants and 20% of manufacturing participants gearing up for an increase".

Any reader who is interested in looking behind this post to the full 64-page report can access it by clicking here and completing the registration procedure.