Patent Filings Bounced Back After 5-Year Low, Here’s Why

After patent filings dropped to a five-year low at the beginning of 2016, a natural question was whether that trend would continue?

Alas, that does not appear to be the case.

In the second quarter of 2016, there were 1,282 patent infringement cases filed in the U.S., up 33 percent from the first quarter when 958 cases filed.

“It doesn’t look like this year is going to be one of smaller and fewer cases,” said Brian Howard, a data scientist at Lex Machina. “The last few months have been significantly higher than what we were seeing in January, February and March.”

Howard believes that ...