There were 33 percent fewer patent lawsuits filed in the third quarter of 2015 than in 2014, according to data published today by LexMachina.

1,119 new patent cases were filed in Q3 2015, compared to last year's record-setting 1,665 cases in the same quarter. Looking at the year as a whole, 4,255 cases were filed in the first nine months of 2015, compared with 3,941 cases in 2014 and 4,593 cases in 2013.

For the past two years, the Eastern District of Texas has led in new filings, being far and away the most popular district to file in. Large numbers of Eastern District of Texas filings are being created by a relatively small number of non-practicing entities, also known as "patent trolls."

LexMachina's data doesn't name particular entities. Last year, the top three most litigious non-practicing entities were all represented by the same law firm, Texas-based Austin Hansley. One of those entities, eDekka LLC, recently had its patent invalidated, effectively shutting down 168 patent cases at once.

With just a few licensing companies driving large amounts of litigation, it's getting hard to say what's driving the trends that LexMachina has identified. "You would have to ask the attorney of those two or three biggest plaintiffs," said Brian Howard, LexMachina's data officer.

With last quarter as a record high, some regression to the baseline is to be expected, Howard said.

"Anecdotally, I've heard that some of the litigation that would have been filed in this quarter was shifted up and filed in Q2 because of concern over patent reform," he added. "That was quite a live issue earlier this year, but not really anymore."

In other words, the possibility of increased filing requirements, or a greater threat of being made to pay legal fees, could have pushed some big players in the patent troll world to file cases sooner rather than later. If that hypothesis is true, it wouldn't be the first time: there was a massive spike of patent filings in April 2013. That occurred after a draft of a patent reform bill circulated, suggesting that certain changes would take effect for cases filed after that time.

In any case, it looks like patent lawsuits are finding their "new normal": large amounts of filings, concentrated in the Eastern District of Texas. The fact that it's easier for defendants to get patents thrown out at early stages of litigation has surely led some non-practicing entities to be more selective in what cases they bring. For others, the answer has been a wider, shotgun-style approach, seeking relatively low licensing fees from a large swath of companies.

Copyright and trademark

In the copyright space, there are two distinct types of cases: "traditional" copyright cases and file-sharing cases, typically filed against John Doe internet users over allegedly illegal use of technologies like BitTorrent. Traditional cases have stayed steady over the last four years, while file-sharing cases have risen sharply, essentially quadrupling from 2011 to 2014.

The third quarter of this year saw 627 cases filed, a drop from a record spike of 904 file-sharing cases filed in Q1 of 2015. That's still higher than Q3 of any recent year. The copyright file-sharing cases are led by a few content producers that have been aggressive about pursuing pirates, including Voltage Pictures and porn studio Malibu Media.

Trademark filings have stayed very steady since 2012, with between 800 and 1,000 cases being filed each quarter. An interesting outlier is the third quarter of 2014, when more than 450 cases were filed by NFL players over usage of their likenesses in video games and other media.