2011 Patent Litigation Survey: The Busiest Firms Overall

Earlier this year, CorpCounsel contacted more than 300 law firms and asked them to provide us with a list of patent lawsuits they either filed on behalf of plaintiffs in federal district court in 2010 or were hired to defend against. To be considered for this survey, the cases in question had to be active as of February 1, 2011. We did not count cases before the International Trade Commission or appellate courts. Some firms listed multiple district court cases with the same plaintiff. If those cases involved highly similar technology or consolidated discovery, we counted them all as one. We did not rank firms who served as local counsel in the bulk of cases submitted. As such, two firms this year were excluded from our rankings: Texas-based Gillam Smith would have ranked eighth overall with 53 cases. Delaware-based Richards, Layton & Finger would have ranked ninth overall with 49 cases.