To get the true story, the number of cases filed needs to be multiplied by the number of claims asserted. Yes, that’s an inside joke.

In all seriousness, though, I am amazed that some of the maximalist types out there continue to believe (or appear to believe) that the amount of litigation correlates positively with the overall strength of the patents being obtained (or asserted). That’s just … bizarre.

Patent litigation represents the failure of two (or more) parties to come to an agreement about the value of patent or the relationship of a patent to one party’s activities. That failure is almost always the result of uncertainty about the validity or scope of a patent, and that uncertainty is tied closely to the failure of the patent system to do its job. In other words, as long as patents are still being sought in large numbers (and they surely are), less litigation reflects less assertion of junky patents, i.e., less assertion of patents that alleged infringers are willing to fight about.

Patents on correlations and patents on methods of applying “new” logic to data “on a computer” (or using computers to facilitate the application of old logic to “new” data content) remain the worst patents out there. Myriad and Mayo put a huge damper on the assertion of the former types of patents. Bilski and Alice made a dent in the latter type but the CAFC (and the PTO) have bent over backwards to keep life support on for the latter patents. And it’s the those latter patents that continue to weaken the system. Expunge them all. Inject certainty back into the system. And the system will be stronger than it’s been for forty years.