The cost of defending patent troll litigation: $29bn annually
The $29 billion number comes from measuring … legal fees going to lawyers, and the licensing fees paid in tribute to make the trolls go away … The findings come from a relatively small sample of 83 companies, both small and large.
The median amount spent to pay off a troll suit is just $230,000 for large companies and $180,000 for small- and medium-size defendants. The discrepancy means that the great majority of trolls go away after getting relatively small payouts, while a few very strong entities in the patent-trolling business are able to pull off giant multimillion-dollar settlements. …
The second-largest cost is, unsurprisingly, fees paid to defense lawyers. Big companies spend a mean of $1.52 million per litigation, while small- and medium-sized companies spend $420,000. Again, those compare to much lower median figures …, showing that the companies have a large number of cheaply defended cases, while a few heavily litigated cases run up big fees.
