GAO Report to Congress - Patent Litigation/Patent Quality

In August, 2013 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released to Congress a report entitled Intellectual Property: Assessing Factors That Affect Patent Infringement Litigation Could Help Improve Patent Quality. Among the findings were that software-related patents accounted for around 89 percent of an increase in defendants from 2007 to 2011. The report also discussed three key factors that likely contributed to many recent patent infringement lawsuits:

• patents filed with unclear property rights (overly broad or unclear claims or both)
• large monetary awards from the courts might provide incentive to file a suit
• companies are realizing patents "are a more valuable asset than once assumed"

The full report is available at: http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/657103.pdf