Corporate Counsel recently released its 2013 Patent Litigation Survey, a study which ranks firms based on the number of federal district court patent suits handled annually. The biggest takeaway from their findings….the practice area remains hot. According to the October 21 release article by Lisa Shuchman, “The year 2012 saw a little bit of everything: Massive damages awards, increasingly brazen patent assertion entities, and the major patent reform law passed in 2011 beginning to make its mark.”
| RANK FIRM 2012 RANK +/- CHANGE TOTAL CASES |
| 1 Fish & Richardson 1 0 220 |
| T-2 Finnegan Henderson 8 +6 95 |
| T-2 Kirkland & Ellis 5 +3 95 |
| 4 Winston & Strawn 9 +5 94 |
| T-5 Cooley 12 -7 90 |
| T-5 DLA Piper 6 +1 90 |
| 7 Alston & Bird 13 +6 88 |
| 8 Greenberg Traurig 10 +2 86 |
| T-9 Perkins Coie 7 -2 85 |
| T-9 Richards Layton — — 85 |
The top 10 was led by Fish & Richardson. Fish handled a whopping 220 total cases, more than double the next closest firms, Finnegan Henderson and Kirkland & Ellis at 95 each. Other firms making repeat appearances in the top 10 include Winston & Strawn, DLA Piper, Greenberg Traurig, and Perkins Coie. Rounding out the top 10 were top 10 newcomers Cooley, Alston & Bird, and Richards Layton.
Among all 71 firms making the list, defendant side cases made up the majority of the representation. There were 3,119 cases total, with a split of 74% on the defendant-side and 26% on the plaintiff-side. The only firms among the 71 ranked that more often represented plaintiffs include Niro Haller, McKool Smith, Haynes and Boone, McCarter & English, Blank Rome, Fitzpatrick Cella, Morris Manning, Cantor Colburn, Kirton McConkie, Oblon, and Moore & Van Allen.