While a majority of companies consider the cost of obtaining patent protection an essential element of the product and technology development process, few of these same organizations favor the prospect of asserting their patent rights against potential infringers. Moreover, no company relishes the prospect of being a defendant in a patent lawsuit. That most do not readily welcome patent litigation is not surprising given that the average cost of large case (i.e., over $25 MM at stake) patent litigation through trial in 2007 was about $5MM per party in 2007. For disposition of smaller cases, the total amount per party was about $1MM in 2004 dollars. Why does it cost so much for a patent owner to assert her patent rights against an alleged infringer? Put simply, patent litigation at its core is an adversarial undertaking in which lawyers typically define the meaning of a successful outcome. In this context,
Patent Litigation
