Patent Infringement Cases Increase in Oil and Gas Business

As the price of oil has fallen, an increasing number of intellectual property suits, especially patent infringement complaints, have been filed among oil field service and equipment companies.

A direct result of falling oil prices, patent suits in the oil and gas sector have been steadily increasing since late 2014, Paul Morico, deputy department chair of Baker Botts LLP’s intellectual property section, told Bloomberg BNA.

Morico’s group tracks which cases are filed every day and, “You’d struggle to find this many cases in the previous 18 months,” he said.

“What’s significant is that these are competitor cases,” Morico said. “These ...