
The demand for Intellectual Property litigation in the United States has been decreasing for quite some time now, but data to support that drop was released this week by Unified Patents, according to iam-magazine.
The research from Unified Patents covers just the third quarter of this year, from June through September, and shows a 23 percent drop in the number of lawsuits filed compared to the second quarter of this year. The research also shows a 27 percent year-on-year drop in the number of lawsuits filed.
This data comes not long after Lex Machina

In an interview with i-am magazine, Lex Machina founder Mark Lemley blamed the drop in IP litigation to the Supreme Court's ruling in Alice v. CLS. Lemley said the following in the interview:
"We've seen a number of changes coming together all at once in patent law. Maybe the most significant of those is the Supreme Court's Alice decision which is, I think, having a real effect on both software and business method patents. We've seen in the wake of Alice 15 decisions in the federal courts involving software or business method patents - 13 of those have struck the patents down."
On top of Unified Patents confirming the data from Lex Machina, the company was also able to find where much of the drop in IP litigation has occurred. There has been a major drop in NPE suits in the high-tech sector. Operating companies initiating litigation dropped by 19 from quarter to quarter, but litigation initiated by NPEs dropped by 301 from the second quarter to the third quarter. The drop came from 885, which is a 35 percent decline.
Shawn Ambwani, the chief operating officer for Unified Patents, said the following about the data:
"It is clear litigation in general did not change in quarter 3, only NPE suits in high tech had a great tumble. We cannot be clear as to the causation, but can make some good guesses, which include Alice and the America Invents Act."
- See Top 10 Reasons Most Law Firms Have No Idea How to Hire and Evaluate Patent Attorneys for more information.