Federal Court Statistics On Intellectual Property Litigations: Copyright Litigations Increase By 25% 2014-2015

    Statistics from http://www.uscourts.gov/


According to statistics from the Federal Judicial Center for the period ending June 30, 2015, copyright litigations filed in the 2014-2015 period were up 25% over the previous year.  The Federal Judicial Center reported Intellectual Property case filings as follows:


                                                                   2014                        2015
Intellectual Property                                13,195                      14,145
Copyright                                                  3,906                         4,895
Trademark                                                 3,242                         3,616
Patent                                                        6,047                         5,634


Despite a 7.2% increase in overall intellectual property case filings in the U.S. federal courts, we see that patent filings have decreased and trademark filings grew modestly.


It is interesting to see how these intellectual property case filings are distributed nationwide by circuit:


DC          74
1st          203
2nd      1,198
3rd       2,107
4th          889
5th        2,534
6th        1,051
7th          997
8th          817
9th       2,678
10th        383
11th     1,200
Fed Circuit (not available)


We can observe that the district courts located within the Ninth Circuit have over twice the number of IP case filings that we see in the district courts located in the Second Circuit.  We also note that IP filings in the Third, Fifth and Eleventh Circuits exceed those in the Second Circuit.


The Federal Judicial Center's statistics for the U.S. Courts of Appeals do not break out intellectual property cases, but report a number.  The reports also do not contain a year-to-year comparison, so you have to toggle to the 2014 report to make a caseload comparison.  Here are the statistics:


                                                                                   2014               2015
Copyright, Patent and Trademark Cases                   322                  363


These numbers show just over a twelve percent year-to-year increase in appeals from the decision of the U.S. District Courts.  A surprising number of these appeals are filed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  In 2015 there were 117 IP appeals filed in the Ninth Circuit and 105 in 2014.  This means that roughly 32% of the nation's intellectual property appeals were filed in the Ninth Circuit (apart from those filed in the Federal Circuit for which numbers are not available).


In the Second Circuit, intellectual property case filings are broken down by district court:


Intellectual Property                     1,198
CT                                                     71
NDNY                                               22
WDNY                                              39
SDNY                                              796
EDNY                                              263


To explore the wonderful world of Statistical Tables for the Federal Judiciary for yourself, please visit   http://www.uscourts.gov/statistics-reports/statistical-tables-federal-judiciary-june-2015.


For more information about handling copyright litigation, you may consider my book Copyright Litigation Handbook (2014-2015 Thomson Reuters/West).  You can explore the table of contents here.   You can also find it on Westlaw by typing in COPYLITIG.   To use it on your tablet or laptop, consider the Proview ebook version.




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 Copyright law, fine art and navigating the courts. All practice, no theory.Copyright Litigation Handbook (Thomson Reuters Westlaw 2014-2015) by Raymond J. Dowd