Recent public comments by Apple show that the Cupertino gadget company has reason to believe it's the most popular target of so-called "patent trolls," companies whose only business is suing over patents.

"No firm has been targeted by PAEs more than Apple," wrote Apple in public comments filed with the Federal Trade Commission. "Apple has litigated against PAEs 92 times in the past three years alone and has received many more demands."

Apple's most recent filings, at the FTC and in Supreme Court amicus briefs, are unusual in the amount of detail they offer about the particulars of its patent battles. The statistical information it revealed comes from internal Apple legal information as well as a study that Apple commissioned conducted by PatentFreedom, a defense-oriented patent consultancy.

In its amicus brief for Highmark v. Allcare Management Systems, an upcoming Supreme Court case over when fees should be awarded in patent cases, Apple shared a statistic that companies usually keep to themselves: how many cases it settled. Of the 92 cases filed recently, 57 are closed cases; in 51 of those cases, Apple paid the troll. Apple's lawyers explain:

Apple has rarely lost on the merits. But victory figures as small consolation, because in every one of these cases, Apple has been forced to bear its legal fees. This reality is the lifeblood of the patent assertion industry... Indeed, the opening line of many negotiations is some form of, "What we’re asking for is less than it will cost you to litigate this case to judgment." It should come as no surprise, then, that despite its success in litigating the merits, for business purposes Apple has agreed to a settlement in 51 of the 57 closed cases.

In the same amicus brief, Apple also takes a shot at its least favorite troll, Lodsys. Apple's legal team clearly isn't happy about how Lodsys was able to get off the hook last year after Apple intervened on its developers' behalf. They write:

One would be hard pressed to imagine a more troubling instantiation of this model than the one practiced by Lodsys Group, LLC... Lodsys burst onto the patent assertion scene in 2011 by firing off a spate of demand letters to app developers, many of whom are individuals with extremely little revenue, alleging that they were using software related to “in-app purchasing” that was covered by a handful of Lodsys-owned patents... [A]gain, Lodsys scuttled away, settling with each of the developers for a pittance, thereby mooting Apple’s attempted intervention and avoiding a sure loss on the merits... Lodsys has no compunctions about this strategy. It will keep moving from developer to developer, leeching whatever royalties it can until a party with the resources to litigate scares it away. The PatentFreedom study commissioned by Apple also shows that there are more than 250 active patent trolls in the nation. By the time of the study's completion in late 2013 (the exact date isn't clear from Apple's limited quotes), PAEs had sued 2,873 defendants and were on track to break the 2011 record of 3,103 defendants being sued in a year.

The Apple statistics were revealed in December filings and highlighted this weekend in a front-page story in The Chicago Tribune.

Another interesting "troll" stat, one not revealed in Apple's filings: Samsung, a company that has been sued by arch-rival Apple over patents, is the trolls' fifth most popular target. PatentFreedom revealed that statistic to the Korea Herald. Samsung had 38 lawsuits filed against it in 2013.

Apple is apparently only the top target when one calculates patent suits on a three-year basis. According to the Korea Herald—quoting the PatentFreedom study—over the past five years, Google has been the top target, subject to 192 troll lawsuits. That's followed by Apple with 191 suits, and then Samsung with 151.