Big Drop In Patent Suits, Thanks To Alice?

The number of patent lawsuits filed during September was 40 percent fewer than were filed in September of 2013. This was after reaching a record high of 675 new cases filed in April of this year. A post from Lex Machina lays out some of the numbers and cites Stanford Law Professor Mark Lemley, a founder of Lex Machina and a patent litigator at the San Francisco law firm Durie Tangri, for his take on what appears to be a clear trend. Lemley suggests that the Alice decision – Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, decided on June 19 – which widened the definition of a non-patentable “abstract idea,” has made many patent holders think twice about filing suit.