IP Litigation Falls In The US... But Someone Is Confused As To Why

from the the-successful-RIAA-strategy? dept

Tue, Jan 20th 2009 9:22am — Mike Masnick

There's a new report out that highlights that there were fewer IP related lawsuits in the US in 2008 than in 2007. The drop was about 10%: from 10,276 to 9,210. However, the reasoning given in the report for the decline is difficult to square with reality. It claims that: "The trend reflects the success of the recording industry in protecting its copyrights, leading the industry to bring fewer lawsuits in the past few years." That isn't even close to accurate. The RIAA has had very little success protecting its copyrights. The legal strategy has been a colossal failure, without a single legal win that held up, and file sharing has only grown over time. Hell, the RIAA has admitted failure in their lawsuit strategy, hence the decision to cut back on them (not end them, completely, as was originally claimed). So, it's difficult to see how anyone could conclude that the program was a success, and resulted in fewer lawsuits. And, of course, the aggregate numbers may not be all that telling, either. In the past, patent system defenders have noted a drop in cases filed recently, but they fail to note that it was because more patent litigation these days is filed against a long list of companies, rather than just one or two. So, in actuality, more companies are getting sued for patent infringement, even if there are fewer overall lawsuits.

Filed Under: intellectual property, lawsuits
Companies: riaa

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Anonymous Coward, 20 Jan 2009 @ 9:46am

Same with the RIAA
"So, in actuality, more companies are getting sued for patent infringement, even if there are fewer overall lawsuits."

The RIAA is pursuing this strategy as well. See all the new cases for "X Record Label v. Does 1-n (usually on the order of 10-15)." This might have helped the number of lawsuits drop as well.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Jan 2009 @ 10:02am

So what
RIAA has failed with its strategy with copyrights. What does that has to do with patents? Both are unrelated issues.

If you want to prove your point provide the statistics related to those IP related lawsuits (how many failed? settlements? won?).
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kirillian (profile), 20 Jan 2009 @ 10:18am

Re: So what
IP Issues != patent

IP includes patent...and copyright issues...
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Mike (profile), 20 Jan 2009 @ 10:37am

Re: So what
RIAA has failed with its strategy with copyrights. What does that has to do with patents? Both are unrelated issues.

Um. The overall study was on IP lawsuits: including copyright, patent and trademark lawsuits. So, yes, all of them are included.
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Ron (profile), 20 Jan 2009 @ 10:42am

Statistics
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please"

Guess they did that in that report.
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chris (profile), 20 Jan 2009 @ 12:21pm

mission accomplished
the RIAA is announcing the end of major combat operations in IP litigation. this is a "significant blow" for piracy.

pay no attention to the pirate behind the curtain.
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Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased), 20 Jan 2009 @ 1:12pm

Innovation meet brick wall
Maybe innovation has decreased since nobody wants to get sued. Now there are less lawsuits.
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