For the first time since 2009, new patent lawsuit filings declined in 2014 from the previous year. Lawsuits dropped by 13 percent, a significant shift from the numbers of cases over the previous five years, caused in part by the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Alice ruling, according to a new study released Wednesday by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court has quietly adopted a rule that will increase pleading standards for filing patent lawsuits. In an order in late April, the high court without comment adopted changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that were approved in September by the Judicial Conference of the U.S. and will take effect Dec. 1. unless they are modified by Congress, which is considering bills that would raise patent pleading standards even beyond what the new rule requires.